There may be no more of a partisan columnist than David Brooks of the New York Times. In his column today he argues that if a Democrat wins the Presidency, the unity the party seems to want will evaporate almost immediately, especially over the issue of Iraq. Of course, Brooks uses straw men to construct his argument, a clearly immature and unfair rhetorical tactic. But he’s a consistent Republican apologist, so we can expect that. Here’s a bit of David Brooks’ immature argument from the NY Times:

The first big rift would involve Iraq. Both Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have seductively hinted that they would withdraw almost all U.S. troops within 12 to 16 months. But if either of them actually did that, he or she would instantly make Iraq the consuming partisan fight of their presidency.

There would be private but powerful opposition from Arab leaders, who would fear a return to 2006 chaos. There would be irate opposition from important sections of the military, who would feel that the U.S. was squandering the gains of the previous year. A Democratic president with few military credentials would confront outraged and highly photogenic colonels screaming betrayal.

There would be important criticism from nonpartisan military experts. In his latest report, the much-cited Anthony Cordesman describes an improving Iraqi security situation that still requires “strategic patience” and another five years to become self-sustaining.

There would be furious opposition from Republicans and many independents. They would argue that you can’t evacuate troops just as Iraqis are about to hold national elections and tensions are at their highest. They would point out that it’s insanity to end local reconstruction and Iraqi training efforts just when they are producing results. They would accuse the new administration of reverse-Rumsfeldism, of ignoring postsurge realities and of imposing an ideological solution on a complex situation.

All dreams of changing the tone in Washington would be gone. All of Obama’s unity hopes would evaporate. And if the situation did deteriorate after a quick withdrawal, as the National Intelligence Estimate warns, the bloodshed would be on the new president’s head.

The straw man here is Brooks’ assertion that both Hillary and Barack would withdraw “almost all” US troops from Iraq. Both candidates have actually said that they would see that as a goal, but would listen to the military minds and how they would plan such a withdrawal. In short, David Brooks constructs an argument while deleting from it those aspects that HE KNOWS the candidates have committed to. Her constructs an argument I would expect from a Freshman Comp student, but that’s not surprising with Brooks. The Freshman Comp student has the excuse of inexperience. Brooks has no excuse, but he’ll never admit his partisan mendacity. He’s not one for personal responsibility.

Yeah, I call that a typical thing from David Brooks (R-Putz).

This is not to say that there isn’t a danger to Democratic unity once Obama or Clinton come to office. I fully expect the disloyal opposition at that point, the Republicans, to wage a legislative war against the Democratic President. They will seek any angle with which to attack Obama or Clinton. And I’ll be the first to note that there’s going to be some hardball eventually here in the Democratic primaries. Hillary threw a hard sinker at Obama yesterday, and it was hit out of the park by Obama’s folks. From ABC News:

“Sen. Obama has some questions to answer about his dealings with one of his largest contributors Exelon, a big nuclear power company; apparently he cut some deals behind closed doors to protect them from full disclosure of the nuclear industry,” she said.

Clinton defended her position not to disclose her income tax returns.

“I have said that I will release my tax returns when I am the nominee,” the New York Democrat said. “My entire ethics statement is on record at the senate I have liquidated all my holdings, I’m holding everything in cash so there’s not even a question of conflict.”

Obama was not immediately able to respond to the accusation because his interview with the same station, which aired Monday night, was taped.

Obama’s spokesperson, Bill Burton, however did return fire.

“Leave it to Senator Clinton to attack Barack Obama for a bill that she actually co-sponsored and supported. Instead of playing the same Washington games that people are sick of, she should prove how fully vetted she is by finally releasing her tax returns so that voters can see where the millions of dollars she’s dropped into her campaign are coming from,” Burton said.

In his interview, the Senator took a swipe at Clinton’s campaign operation, which has suffered bad news of late with campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle stepping aside on Sunday and word that the senator had injected $5 million of her own money into the campaign.

“I started from scratch and was up against a operation that had been built over the course of 20 years by a former president with the bulk of the Democratic establishment on their side and after setting up a hundred million plus operation with hundreds of employees around the country, it looks like we’ve played them to a draw so far,” Obama said.

Hey, this is expected in any campaign, especially from the candidate who is behind, and there’s ample reason for us to view the Clinton campaign as being behind. They’ve replaced the campaign manager, lost a few races over the weekend, and they’re going to lose three races today, most likely. I expect them to get more desperate in the next few days, and I expect every charge they make to bounce off Obama, not because Obama has a Reagan-like Teflon thing going, but because the Democratic electorate does not want to see negative campaigning. My guess is that Hillary Clinton has changed her campaign focus through a new campaign manager, but she’s likely to go negative very soon. Heck, she went negative in Michigan, though she whines that she didn’t. That won’t work for her. You heard it here first. Heck, you’ve heard it here for several months.