Politico credibility down the tubes over slow bleed.

Media: As they backtrack to get back into favor with the Democrats.

"....Bresnahan, who has unparalleled sources and understanding of how Congress works, wrote an article that was the first to detail the emerging Democratic strategy of challenging Bush on Iraq. Here was the lead paragraph of the draft he submitted: "Even as the House begins debate on a resolution opposing President Bush's plan to send 21,500 more U.S. combat troops to Iraq, leading anti-war groups are preparing a multi-million dollar TV ad campaign and grassroots lobbying blitz designed to pressure vulnerable incumbent lawmakers to end their support for the war." VandeHei and I read the article and were impressed by the detail of Bresnahan's reporting. But, as editors always do, we had our quibbles. Like the lead paragraph: Too bulky, and too bland. The story was a good bit better than the introduction. We rushed the patient to the operating table for emergency surgery. With VandeHei hovering over my shoulder, this is what I came up with: "Top House Democrats, working in concert with anti-war groups, have decided against using congressional power to force a quick end to U.S. involvement in Iraq, and instead will pursue a slow-bleed strategy designed to gradually limit the administration's options." That is not exactly prize-winning prose, but it seemed a little snappier to us -- and more on point. Please note the context: What is slowly bleeding away is the administration's political support to keep fighting the war. Republicans pounced on the phrase because of the ease with which that context could be shorn away, to give the impression that what Democrats were slow-bleeding were the bodies of troops in Iraq. That willingness to wrest words from context -- and to attribute the phrase to Democrats even though it was not theirs -- was demagogic on the part of Republican operatives. But it was never my plan to make their work so easy. A journalist's job is to clarify political debate, not further muddy it. In the two weeks since his original article, Bresnahan's reporting has continued to clarify the unfolding Iraq argument, even as his editors made life more difficult for him.

Really? As Media Matters pointed out that on Feb 13th Ryan Lizza, senior editor of The New Republic had this to say about Murtha's plan.

LIZZA: And look, they're reading the same polls that we're all reading, and they realize that the American public doesn't quite -- there's not a big majority for defunding the troops, so it doesn't look like the Democratic leadership is going to go there. Instead, what you're going to have is a strategy led by Murtha, which is going to be to limit the number of troops available to President Bush by putting some restrictions on what troops will be allowed to be brought over to Iraq. So that's the strategy that the -- that's the sort of two-part strategy: first, this non-binding resolution, and then restricting what troops Bush can use. So, it's a sort of -- a slow bleeding of our ability to do much more in Iraq.

Everyone who was paying attention realized what Murtha was trying to do and as left wing site Mother Jones points out.

So, okay. It's a plan to slowly kill the war in Iraq. Immediately after the Politico story was released, the Washington Post, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and other news outlets used the phrase "slow bleed." What was the problem -- after all, it seems like a fitting description of the plan? Republicans started using the phrase to highlight its morbid qualities, pounding away with it over and over on the floor of the House and going so far as to say that Democrats were using "slow bleed" as a title for the plan (which was false; Politico's story was the first usage). The whole situation just looked insensitive (and bumbling) on the part of the Dems: how could they name a plan that potentially endangers the troops, so the argument goes, with a phrase that evokes a wounded or dying soldier? ....Murtha was finding new and innovative ways to end the war in Iraq. A prefectly descriptive label with unfortunate connotations was applied to it. Are we really so immature that we focus on the latter and can't see the former?

MJ Blog is the only one I have seen so far to say so what? Everyone else jumping on John Harris and Politico is mad because the GOP by some miracle turned it back on them by stating the truth about Murtha's plan. The description fit but it turned back the ownership on the Dems which is what they don't want in the first place.

What is worse that Harris made the situation worse by groveling for lefty approval by taking blame for telling the truth.