While young men and women are fighting half a world away, members of Congress late Friday engaged in a ridiculous partisan battle designed only to embarrass each other.

Responding to the call of Democrat John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a decorated combat veteran who sought to pin down the president on a timetable for troop withdrawal, Republicans orchestrated a pointless vote against a GOP-penned resolution for immediate withdrawal.

In the meantime, the partisan debate devolved into personal attacks on both sides of the fence.

Murtha&8217;s suggestion is legitimate: The Vietnam veteran is looking, as are most Americans, for proof of some kind of exit strategy from Iraq.

But the vote Congress actually took shows the reality of our situation.

Americans cannot abandon the situation we&8217;re in right now. We need Iraqis themselves to stand up and take our places on the battlefield against the insurgency that is terrorizing their own country.

We do need a serious dialogue about exit strategy. We need both sides of the political spectrum to debate the merits of what is happening in the country.

But we also need legitimate support for what our troops are doing overseas.

If members of Congress on both sides of the aisle anxious to get their Thanksgiving holiday under way were looking for some way to thank American soldiers for their service, Friday night&8217;s free-for-all was about as far from that as they could get.