A listener sent this picture and e-mail a little bit ago.

This is John Gebhardt in Iraq.  His wife Mindy reports that this little girl's entire family was executed.  The insurgents intended on executing this little girl, too.  In fact, they tried by shooting her in the head. But miraculously, this little girl lived, but is obviously suffering while her body tries to heal.  She cries and moans incessantly, but John is able to calm her.  The nurses where she's being treated say John's the only one she clings to.  So John and this little Iraqi girl have slept for the last four nights in that chair so that she can continue to heal after her injury.

Not exactly Abu Ghraib-like, so it's doubtful you'll ever see this hit the nightly newscast. 

While stories like this circulate around Iraq, the brutality and sheer evil of the insurgents and al Qaeda,  the liberation and humanity offered by Coalition forces, and the rebirth of democratic Iraq taking place before our eyes, Democratic Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, is planning on trying once again this week to choke progress before it has a chance to thrive and prosper by passing legislation to give the military a quarter of the money needed to fund the effort in Iraq, and require that if the token dollar amount is appropriated, an orderly withdrawal begins immediately.

The House of Representatives, in classic mob rule style, passed the "cut the money and run away" bill late last night, sending it along to Reid and the Democrats this morning.  Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Republicans ought to have a stronger hand to defeat this more than ever before because of the clear evidence of progress and success in Iraq.  There is no need to change the course in Iraq, to use the tired phrase of Harry Reid, when the course in Iraq is working demonstrably.  The Republicans should use the 60 vote rule to kill this legislation the moment it comes to the floor.  Republicans would do well to show they are more determined to win than the Democrats are determined to declare defeat. 

And once the bill is killed, it is imperative for George W. Bush to use the bully pulpit and call this stunt for what it is.  He should go to the American people and start showing the progress that is being made, the progress that isn't being shown in the mainstream media, and challenge the Congress directly to stop playing games with the American military while they are fighting, winning and making a real difference abroad, and pass a clean appropriations bill immediately.  And he should keep saying it. 

In the meantime, while the debate goes on in the Senate this week about the current appropriations bill, the one that is a travesty, I hope that one of the Republican Senators sees this picture, or the cross being raised on a new Baghdad Church picture that Michael Yon has posted, or any of the other encouraging signs out of Iraq, and take to the floor.  Show these pictures.  Ask the Democrats how they can be so committed to running away in defeat when we're winning.  Ask them how they can look at the members of the military that are their constituents, and cut their funding while they are winning this front of the war. 

Election '08 still could be decided by Iraq, but not in the way conventional wisdom over the past year intended.  If the trend holds in Iraq over the next year, Democrats will have nothing to offer the electorate but anti-war rhetoric that does not reflect the true events on the ground, and Republicans will have a successful outcome in Iraq that resulted after persevering in their foreign policy strategy.