Another Major Paper Comes Out for Bringing Troops Home

The Tribune-Review in Pittsburgh has come out with an editorial calling for Bush to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq:

Perhaps Jack Murtha put it best: The Pennsylvania congressman, among the first to make the cogent argument that staying the course in Iraq was the exercise in futility that indeed the war has become, says President Bush is delusional.

Based on the president's recent performance, we could not agree more. "Staying the course" is not simply futile -- it is a prescription for American suicide.

We've urged for months to bring our troops home. Now is the time.

"Progress" has become such a nuanced, parsed and tortured term that it no longer has meaning.

The "fledgling" Iraqi government -- how long can it reasonably be called that? -- consistently has not stepped up to the plate.

President Bush warns that U.S. withdrawal would risk "mass killings on a horrific scale." What do we have today, sir?

And quite frankly, during last Thursday's news conference, when George Bush started blathering about "sometimes the decisions you make and the consequences don't enable you to be loved," we had to question his mental stability.

If the president won't do the right thing and end this war, the people must. The House has voted to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by April. The Senate must follow suit.

Our brave troops should take great pride that they rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein. And they should have no shame in leaving Iraq. For it will not be, in any way, an exercise in tail-tucking and running.

America has done its job.

It's time for the Iraqis to do theirs.

And guess what? The owner of the Tribune-Review does not exactly fit the right's liberal media profile:

The Pittsburgh newspaper owned by conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife yesterday called the Bush administration's plans to stay the course in Iraq a "prescription for American suicide."
[...]
Scaife has been a loyal backer of Republican politicians and many conservative causes, and funded a network of investigations into President Clinton during the 1990s.

Cross-posted at Shakesville.