And the award goes to:

Our first two-time recipient, Congressman John P. “Jack” Murtha.

Murtha is a retired Marine Colonel and deserves respect for serving in the Marines in the early 1950’s, for re-enlisting in 1966 and serving in Vietnam, earning a Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts and the Vietnamese Cross for Gallantry. My respect, however, ends there.

First, Murtha advocated an entire pullout from Iraq and, for having done so, earned my previous Moonbat Award.

Now, speaking before a civic group in Latrobe, Pennsylvania on Thursday, December 1st, Murtha said that most U.S. troops will leave Iraq within a year because the Army is “broken, worn out” and “living hand to mouth.”

I’m sorry, but that’s simply a flat-out lie.

Our armed services are the best equipped they’ve ever been, better than in Vietnam, Korea or World War II. You would expect that, would you not?

We are making progress in Iraq. Progress you don’t hear about. Did you know there are:

– 120 Iraqi Army and Police combat battalions
– Batallions are comprised of between 350 and 800 Iraqi forces
– 80 Iraqi battalions are fighting side-by-side with coalition forces
– 40 others are taking the lead in the fight
– 90 square miles of Baghdad province turned over to Iraqi security forces
– Over a dozen bases in Iraq handed over to the Iraqi government
– Iraq has now six basic police academies, and one in Jordan
– They produce over 3,500 new police officers every ten weeks

And this isn’t even taking into account the December 15th elections.

We are in Iraq. We should not leave, unless we don’t mind dumping millions of people back into a confusing and dangerous maelstrom and creating an horrendous vacuum — which would be filled only by the most powerfully treacherous of killers; i.e., read: terrorists.

Let me distill it down even further, Mr. Murtha: “withdrawing” troops from Iraq on a timetable palatable to yourself or other defeatists would not only be tactically beyond stupid, it would be, in a word:

Surrender.