Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way.

If not for the fact that it is so funny, it would be almost painful to watch the once emboldened Democratic Leadership, which ran an election as the party to end the war, wallow rudderless in the mire of disgraceful indecision. Their only actions to date required no real commitment on their part and the only ideas they are floating now have no chance of ending the war but are geared toward embarressing the president politically. As Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif recently lamented, "Bush hasn't to date done anything we've asked him to do, so why we would think he would do anything in the future is beyond me," and with the Bush's approval rating at 36% that tactic has little life left in it.
The Murtha Plan is DOA and the latest twist involves using budget waivers whereby anytime the president needs another box of ammo he will have to get authorization from congress. Biden has proposed revoking the original authorization but when Bush declared the end of major hostilities it could be argued that we are no longer working under that bill anyway.
So that brings us to defunding the Iraq operations, the one action that legally and constitutionally could stop the war. But for reasons that only the democrats can say (and they aren’t at this point) defunding has become the third rail of the debate and they are loath to pull the plug.
It must be painful to try to nuance your core beliefs in exchange for political expediency. (The use of methods that bring the most immediate benefits based on practical rather than moral considerations. (Encarta) In a time of war that expediency reaches another level. Mark Twain once said ;

Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let me label you as they may.

It is not at all unpatriotic to question the war but it is morally bankrupt not take the actions to back up your stated convictions.