I had to read the subject of the email Lorie sent me a little while ago several times before I made sure I was reading it correctly. During tonight’s debate, Obama admitted that violence is significantly down in Iraq. But who’s responsible?

Obama said that much of the progress that has been made was due to agreements made between the tribes in the Anbar Province and that those were made (not because of the surge, but) because those in Iraq saw the Democrats win back the Congress in 2006 and decided they would be pulling the troops out so they had to step up.

… The irony here is that several of his colleagues have admitted the surge was responsible. Like John Murtha:

“I think the ‘surge’ is working,” the Democrat said in a videoconference from his Johnstown office, describing the president’s decision to commit more than 20,000 additional combat troops this year.

And House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on Tuesday that the troop surge, which began in June, has had a significant impact on the situation in Iraq and noted that he had always been critical of the Bush administration for deploying an insufficient number of troops in previous years.

Those are just two of several.

For quite a while now, actually since violence began declining significantly, many of us speculated the Dems would find some way to take credit for this. No surprise.