Reply #45: That's not true. A lot of Dems stood up against the war. Murtha got attention

[jobycom]

only because he had previously supported it, and then changed his mind.

As for "letting go of some issues to save" lives in Iraq--if it were a choice between accepting Murtha and costing more lives, the choice would be easy. I'd have to see how that choice is the only one, though. Abortion is not just an "issue" to me, it is the heart and soul of what it means to be a Democrat. Not because of the one issue itself, but what it says. Banning abortion is fundamentally undermining the equality between men and women before the law. It is telling a woman what she must do with her body, whereas there is no equivalent restriction on a man. I don't see that as just an issue. It is the essence of how a person views equality.

I'd side with the Devil or Tom DeLay if it would stop the slaughter, but I would prefer to side with someone who opposed the slaughter in the first place, and who I trusted on the other issues he or she would also oversee.