Let's retire that phrase

Minneapolis Star Tribune: With Tuesday's election, we hope one loopy phrase can be stomped back in the can of political sleaze from which it escaped. The phrase? "Cut and run."
Anyone advocating immediate or even sometime-soon withdrawal of American troops from Iraq is apt to be accused of wanting to "cut and run," meaning they advocate a dishonorable, cowardly retreat.
But calling for an end to a fruitless, bloody conflict to which this nation has devoted itself for 3 1/2 years, and which shows no signs of ever ending on terms favorable to the United States, is in no way cowardly. It's a reasonable, even brave, perspective. It says, in effect, don't spend more American blood, more American treasure on a lost cause.
Meaning is lost
That honorable point of view actually fits well with the original meaning of cut and run, lost now on most who use the term. In nautical battles among sailing ships, when enemy vessels were bearing down on a navy caught at anchor, the ropes to the anchors would be cut and the ships would run with the wind, thus surviving to engage the enemy on more equal terms. An admiral who cut and ran was more likely to be praised for saving his fleet than criticized for cowardice.
We seem now to have reached the phase of the Iraq war that former Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy described about Vietnam: "As [the war] continued to go badly, its advocates became more defensive. The motives of those who spoke out against the war were questioned, as was their patriotism, and in the case of the Democrats their loyalty to the party. Critics were called 'nervous Nellies' and 'special pleaders,' and, in the language of cattle handlers, as ready to 'cut and run."'
A case can be made for not considering withdrawing from Iraq until the conflict somehow is redeemed. But that case should be made with real arguments, not with sleazy accusations that those who advocate a different course want to "cut and run."