Jerome Sherman in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports the Democrats’ lead attack-dog in the House, Rep. John Murtha, admitted yesterday that the surge in Iraq is working. 

"I think the 'surge' is working," Mr. Murtha, a Democrat, said in a video conference from his Johnstown office, describing the president's decision to commit nearly 30,000 additional troops at the beginning of the year.

Now that the senior Democrats have acknowledged that the surge is a winning strategy, surely they are ready to pass no-strings funding for the troops in Iraq, right?  No.  Majority Leader Steny Hoyer released a statement late yesterday saying that they will stick to their current strategy of cut-and-run, and “require the President to begin to redeploy our troops within 30 days of its enactment with a goal of completion by December 15, 2008.” In essence what the anti-war faction is saying is; yes we agree the strategy is working, but we aren’t going to give it a chance to have long-term success.

Meanwhile Alicia Mundy of the Seattle Times reports on Rep. Norm Dicks’ recent trip to Iraq with Rep. Murtha.

He reminded Maliki and his ministers that they need to pass legislation on sharing oil revenues and power among Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis.

“But I felt kinda embarrassed telling the Iraqis they had to get their act together and pass legislation when we can’t do it back here,” he said.

Congress is in a partisan stalemate on several fronts, and he noted: “We Democrats don’t have the votes to end the war sooner than the White House wants.”

In another sign of positive news from Iraq, Jim Michaels of USA Today reports that U.S. combat fatalities are expected to be at their lowest level in more than 18 months for the month of November. 

The drop in U.S. deaths appears due to the change in strategy and Iraqis rejecting al-Qaeda terrorists, said Dakota Wood, who served in the Marines and is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
Al-Qaeda's tactics of beheadings and other harsh treatment alienated many Iraqis, he said.

At the same time, U.S. troops have established better security for Iraqis, making siding with insurgents a less attractive option, Wood said.