Yet another Matt. And because you’ll want to know while you’re reading it, CoR members. Yeah, it’s more complicated than you think. Or not. Depending on how you view which of them are “on your side.” A sample:
Why it “just wasn’t going to happen” is the controversy. In and around the halls of Congress, the notion that the Democrats made a sincere effort to end the war meets with, at best, derisive laughter. Though few congressional aides would think of saying so on the record, in private many dismiss their party’s lame anti-war effort as an absurd dog-and-pony show, a calculated attempt to score political points without ever being serious about bringing the troops home.“Yeah, the amount of expletives that flew in our office alone was unbelievable,” says an aide to one staunchly anti-war House member. “It was all about the public show. Reid and Pelosi would say they were taking this tough stand against Bush, but if you actually looked at what they were sending to a vote, it was like Swiss cheese. Full of holes.”
In the House, some seventy Democrats joined the Out of Iraq caucus and repeatedly butted heads with Reid and Pelosi, arguing passionately for tougher measures to end the war. The fight left some caucus members bitter about the party’s failure. Rep. Barbara Lee of California was one of the first to submit an amendment to cut off funding unless it was tied to an immediate withdrawal. “I couldn’t even get it through the Rules Committee in the spring,” Lee says.
Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a fellow caucus member, says Democrats should have refused from the beginning to approve any funding that wasn’t tied to a withdrawal. “If we’d been bold the minute we got control of the House — and that’s why we got the majority, because the people of this country wanted us out of Iraq — if we’d been bold, even if we lost the votes, we would have gained our voice.”
An honest attempt to end the war, say Democrats like Woolsey and Lee, would have involved forcing Bush to execute his veto and allowing the Republicans to filibuster all they wanted. Force a showdown, in other words, and use any means necessary to get the bloodshed ended.
“Can you imagine Tom DeLay and Denny Hastert taking no for an answer the way Reid and Pelosi did on Iraq?” asks the House aide in the expletive-filled office. “They’d find a way to get the votes. They’d get it done somehow.”
But any suggestion that the Democrats had an obligation to fight this good fight infuriates the bund of hedging careerists in charge of the party. In fact, nothing sums up the current Democratic leadership better than its vitriolic criticisms of those recalcitrant party members who insist on interpreting their 2006 mandate as a command to actually end the war. Rep. David Obey, chair of the House Appropriations Committee and a key Pelosi-Reid ally, lambasted anti-war Democrats who “didn’t want to get specks on those white robes of theirs.” Obey even berated a soldier’s mother who begged him to cut off funds for the war, accusing her and her friends of “smoking something illegal.”
There are friends, and “friends.”
Front page
Anabasis
I am confident that we will be out of Iraq within two years
Very interesting
Some of these actions can be verified, and it would be interesting to know if they are being undertaken:
For example.
Reminds one of Mad Max, doesn’t it? Except real, of course.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Be careful of embracing Mr. Lind
One of those very smart people who may or may not actually be human.
I try to avoid tinfoil but if alien creatures were to invade the planet and take human shape, they would think just like Lind:
Reading him as a military strategist, keep in mind that he has never been in the military and has no real-world experience with combat conditions. His audience is exclusively civilian now, the military had enough because he wouldn’t allow any of his ideas to be challenged - he demanded that they be obeyed without question.
Lind
One of those very smart people who may or may not actually be human.
Agreed. But even a blind sometimes will find a nut.
blind squirrel
Blind squirrel.
so I need a copy editor
so sue me
Better Democrats...
While I share your disdain for Pelosi and Reid, we are talking about two separate problems here.
Pelosi is Speaker because House Dems don’t want a strong leader. Pelosi is simply a symptom of the larger problem affecting the Party as a whole — we need better Democrats.
Reid is a whole ’nother kettle of fish. He’s afraid to provide real leadership for the Democrats — he saw what happened to Tom Daschle, and Daschle wasn’t exactly Mr. Backbone. Being too closely associated with the Democratic agenda could lead to a serious challenge for his seat in a bad year for Democrats — and if the Dems take the White House in 2008, 2010 (when Reid is up for re-election) is likely to be a bad year for Democrats. Reid should be replaced as leader in the next Congress— both for his own good, and the good of the Party.
Anabasis
Who’s been biting my avatar
paul, surely you're not arguing that Tom D provided "real
leadership” for the dem party during his tenure, are you? perhaps my memory is fuzzy, but i seem to recall that almost everytime he was given an important choice to make, he chose poorly. up to and including his own (political) demise. or do i have that wrong?
sour grapes, bitter lemons, rotten apples…i hardly care. tell me how to make them go away, that’s whay i’m asking. even if my choice doesn’t replace them, i’ll take my chances that almost any other dem coalition leaders would be better. let’s try for feingold in the senate, and lee or edwards (krazy, but hey!) in the house. or: let’s try getting soundly “blue” dems in leadership roles, from solidy “blue” districts. which DQs people like Today’s Nancy, btw.
how do we make that happen?