The House of Representatives is now in the second day of debate over President Bush's Iraq war policy. So far, the arguments have featured some notable phrases, and the use of at least one bizarre historical analogy.
MADELEINE BRAND, host: And NPR's Mike Pesca is monitoring all the action, too. He's collected some of the memorable moments so far.</s>MIKE PESCA: Twelve hours of speeches and we're not even half done. At least by Friday every argument to be made about the surge will have been made in triplicate, unless Georgia Republican Jack Kingston is right.</s>Representative JACK KINGSTON (Republican, Georgia): Fortunately for us, and the free world, they don't sit around and watch C-Span and what silly politicians do.</s>MIKE PESCA: If they did, they would have heard the word war uttered 681 times yesterday, peace 52, failure 45, success 83. Those are specific words. Members of Congress often relied on the general.</s>MIKE PESCA: Unidentified Man #1: The great Southern general Robert E. Lee was really (unintelligible)…</s>MIKE PESCA: Unidentified Man #2: Well, he gets part of it from General Giap book in Vietnam.</s>MIKE PESCA: Unidentified Man #3: The quotation from Douglas MacArthur…</s>MIKE PESCA: Unidentified Man #4: We have heard generals - after general, after general…</s>MIKE PESCA: Unidentified Man #5: Apparently all of our best generals have become congressmen.</s>MIKE PESCA: There was plenty of talk about the very relevant generals of today -Petraeus, Casey, Abizaid - but for some reason discussion took a turn to 1836.</s>MIKE PESCA: California Republican Darrell Issa.</s>Representative DARRELL ISSA (Republican, California): That makes as much sense as telling the people at the Alamo, stay the course. That wasn't the right solution at the Alamo.</s>MIKE PESCA: Iowa Republican Todd Akin picked up the Bowie knife and ran with it.</s>Representative TODD AKIN (Republican, Missouri): Could you picture Davy Crockett at the Alamo, looking at his Blackberry getting a message from Congress?</s>MIKE PESCA: New Hampshire Democrat Carol Shea-Porter was puzzled by this particular analogy.</s>Representative CAROL SHEA-PORTER (Democrat, New Hampshire): There's no Davy Crockett in Iraq.</s>MIKE PESCA: Truer and stranger words have hardly ever been uttered.</s>MIKE PESCA: Mike Pesca, NPR News, New York.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: And there's more coming up on DAY TO DAY from NPR News.