From the New York Times:

"But what is truly infuriating is the fact that this administration, the Bush administration, conducted a foreign policy that so pushed our allies away," Mr. Lieberman told a women's missionary group at the Williams Chapel A.M.E. Church in Orangeburg, S.C., adding: "And then had no plans for what to do the day after Saddam fell that we're now in a situation which we ought not to be in, which is that American soldiers are almost totally alone in keeping the peace there. We saw the loss of 16 more yesterday."

Mr. Gephardt, who was one of the original sponsors of the Iraq resolution, said in Concord, N.H., that the nation could not step back now.

"We have to prevail," Mr. Gephardt told reporters. "We have to bring democracy to Iraq. We cannot fail. If you think Afghanistan was a terrorist training camp, you wait. If you leave Iraq, it will be a terrorist training camp the likes of which would make Afghanistan look simple. In our own deep self-interest, to prevent future acts of terrorism, we have to succeed."

He, too, proceeded to criticize Mr. Bush. "We need a president who can get the world to work together with us to solve this problem," Mr. Gephardt said.

Mr. Kerry struck a similar note in Iowa. "What the president is doing is in fact exposing the troops to greater danger than if he did the diplomacy correctly at bringing other countries into this effort," he said.

At least Gephardt gets the critical point of staying the course.

But the continuous "diplomatic failure" meme continues.

Naturally, since nobody is actually THINKING about these statements, they go unchallenged.

Exercise for the student: What would President Gephardt tell France that would make them send troops and give money to the cause? What would he tell Russia and Germany? The United Nations?

What would make all these nations suddenly give in to Gephardt when they told Bush to go to hell? Maybe the whole thing was pure politics to start with? Or maybe Gephardt would be willing to sell out control of Iraq to the Europeans.