My local paper-The Syracuse Post Standard has written an extremely credulous editorial crediting Jim Walsh with "breaking" with Mr. Bush on the war in Iraq. If you are so inclined you can read this editorial here.
I'm really not sure how The P/S came to this conclusion.
The Post Standard published an "Iraq journal" by Mr. Walsh and at the very end of this he writes:
I believe its time to start bringing our soldiers home. They've done their job;... By beginning to draw down troops, we send a very clear signal to the political leaders that it's now their time to lead.
In the entire article this is all Mr. Walsh has to say about bringing our troops home. No talk of a time table, no talk of complete withdrawal, this is his entire statement on this matter. If you look on Mr. Walsh's congressional web page, the only statement I can find on Iraq is on this page.
Again no real concrete talk of time tables or complete withdrawal.
The P/S published a companion piece to Mr. Walsh's "Iraq Journal" by two AP reporters reporting on Mr. Bush's address to the nation this past Thursday. I'm sure most of you have read this however this particular piece can be read here
The reason I add these links is that if you read all the public pronouncements by Mr. Walsh-you can't really find a difference between them and the public pronouncements of Mr. Bush, yet the P/S publishes an editorial claiming Mr. Walsh "has broken with the President"!!!
I sent an email to the P/S pointing this out but so far they haven't published it, maybe the will yet. I don't think they published this editorial to purposefully give polictical cover to Mr. Walsh, however this is essentially what this editorial does.
Dan Maffei ran an extremely effective campaign against Mr. Walsh and nearly won-with little help from the democratic establishement.
Jim Walsh is extremely vulnerable and it looks like he will adopt the Lieberman strategy to try and confuse the voters of CNY 25. Let's hope he's not successful.