The Democrats: Profiles in Cowardice
The retreat of the Democratic congressional majority from trying to force the White House to delineate an Iraq war exit strategy, as well as agreeing to a timetable for wholesale troop withdrawals, is yet another shameful chapter in the Age of Bush.
Using the modest and temporary successes of the surge strategy as a fig leaf, the very Democratic leaders who insisted in the wake of the party’s mid-term election victory that nothing less than bringing the troops home ASAP would do, have now set the bar so low that their new goal is to trying to get their Republican colleagues to agree to modest short-term troop withdrawals.
President Bush, a master of cooptation even without Uncle Karl at his side, kind of sort of proposed doing exactly that in a fly-by visit to an air base in Anbar Province over the weekend.
The Democrats’ about-face primarily is a result of two things:
* A wholesale defection of Republicans from the president’s side has not occurred and the Democrats are still short of the filibuster-proof 60 votes that they need in the Senate to pass legislation that would set deadlines, let alone the two-thirds majority in both chambers required to override a presidential veto. The forecast calls for rain – and Dems compromising their asses off.
* Ever and overly sensitive to being labeled as intransigent, the Democrats have abandoned the tactic of trying to block votes on alternatives to setting deadlines. Their second worst nightmare is being blamed by the GOP for forcing a bloody end to the war and the chaos that will ensue no matter when the U.S. leaves. Their worst nightmare, of course, is blowing the 2008 election.
This bring us to the part of the movie where your Civics class teacher, or whatever they’re calling that subject these days, asks whether compromise is not better than defeat.
Under ordinary circumstances, I would vote for compromise.
But these are not ordinary times, and the Democratic capitulation to the White House over the last six-plus years, most recently on another dangerous expansion of Bush’s power to spy on Americans, is a grim reminder that the absence of a loyal opposition has pretty much allowed the president to run unchecked.
That is because in the end the Democrats are much more concerned about job security than national security.
21 Responses to “The Democrats: Profiles in Cowardice”
The Decider is a formidable adversary – not very bright, but full of pure animal cunning and possessing a superhuman stubborness. Tactics and strategy, not brute force, will be the only way to defeat him.
Shaun, I really think you need to consider another explanation for the Democrats’ behavior, namely, that they have no intention of a complete withdrawal of American forces from Iraq and that their policy in this regard doesn’t differ a great deal from the Administration’s but that it makes a great club to pound over the heads of the Republicans. Evidence: none of the first-tier Democratic presidential aspirants is running on withdrawing all American forces from Iraq.
Dave:
Your point is a most salient one, but further plays into my notion of political cowardice.
The Democrats cannot overcome a Republican filibuster in the Senate, or a veto by Bush. While, I agree they overpromised in ’06, and are overly concerned about keeping their slim majority, I don’t see that they have ever had enough power to pass critical votes.
I’d prefer convictions over power.
(That is, operating on one’s convictions…)
I will indeed find it odd if they “drop the great club”….as christened by Mr. Schuler. What is their political downside to merely incessantly banging the drum (even knowing full well there aren’t enough votes)? Their “anti-war juggernaut” seems to me to be their only successfully motivating agenda item. If they give this up, this Dem Congress will go from being merely inept to non-existent, save for about 62 committee investigations and hearings.
I ultimately agree with Kritter. I have to say that Shaun’s analysis seems kind of accurate. Inless there’s really some reason to think the war is going better. And there is no reason to think that.
Where’s the leadership?
The traditional method of overcoming filibuster or a veto is to compromise. To do that the Democratic leadership will have to allow bills to come up to a vote beyond the timetable-for-withdrawal-bills that aren’t really withdrawal, which it seems they are finally doing. I talked about this at some length in a comment back on May 23rd.
The Democratic leadership’s “ineptitude” (or, alternatively, cowardice, as Shaun puts it) is very strange. They have been hammering their “plan” for six months now knowing all along it would never pass and blocked all attempts to bring alternatives to the floor. Why?
Perhaps I’m being cynical, but the only answer that makes sense to me is that the Democratic leadership prioritizes the 2008 election over Iraq. In short it seems to me the strategy is primarily designed to make Republicans pay the greatest possible political price for Iraq, thereby helping the Democrats in ’08. Making the appearance of fighting Bush on Iraq while not actually doing so plays into this strategy quite well. The Democrats can use the filibuster as a campaign issue and since their plan did not pass as a result, it’s impossible for the Republicans to criticize the results, good or bad.
The downside, of course, is that people like Shaun are getting angry at apparent broken promises, but this doesn’t really hurt the Democrats too much politically. After all, since there is no viable alternative to the two parties to vote for, the worst Democrats can expect is for people like Shaun to stay away from the polls in disgust. However, Democrats are betting people will still go to the polls simply to keep Thompson or Guliani from gaining office.
So it seems to me the Democrats may well have their political cake and eat it to. Meanwhile, Iraq still burns and the US has no viable agreed-upon long-term Iraq strategy. Slow bleed strategy indeed.
If they lack the votes to force an end to the war by instituting timetables- which obviously they do, it now seems logical that they would be willing to introduce and compromise on alternatives. If they can’t end the war by a drawdown, they might be at least able to bring about a lessened presence that would contribute to overall stability in the region as in the Baker-Hamilton Commssion’s report, which has some Republican support.
Unlike the majority of the GOP, the Democrats are not totally unified on Iraq withdrawel. You have the Pelosi Democrats who want to withdraw asap, and the Blue Dogs, who are more likely to support a continued presence. Without unity in even their own party ranks, its doubtful they could force the capitulation that the netroots have been pushing them for.
I do agree that their approach is calculating rather than principled, but it also pragmatic. Realistically any genocide that followed a withdrawel would be blamed on the timelines, rather than mistakes made early on in the war that doomed any hope of the emergence of a stable Iraqi democracy.
For months now, the sole focus has been on the Sept. report card on Iraq. The Democrats would have looked foolish if they pushed withdrawal hard without taking the reprots into account. Accusations of acting without being informed would have drowned out anything they proposed. They have been wise to lay low while those reports are not yet official.
Whatever they do now, has to be a response with the reports included. I hope they spend their time in the waiting room preparing their strategy in response to the report card. Ignoring it is not an option.
It’s crucial that the responst be informed and detailed. Wild rhetoric alone will only make them look silly. Do your homeowrk, Democrats!
Entropy – Compromise died in the late 1980′s, It was on life support during Reagan’s first term. Starting with Iran-Contra, beating your opponent with a club, in the press and hearings have been the norm. This continued to the Clenis saga, maybe new leadership on both sides could fix the problem.
I understand that some people think the Democrats are just playing politics.
But it seems to me that the continuation of the war serves no useful purpose, except to benefit Republicans politically.
Maybe the Civil War will burn itself out and all Iraqi factions will compromise to end it. The Bush Administration would certainly declare victory and claim the credit. But I don’t see that happening by the 2008 election.
The base has been promised a victory. To anyone who listens to Sean Hannity, that promise is headed toward fullfillment–unless the Defeatocrats prevent it. Continuing the war continues the promises made to the base. Imagine what would happen to Repubicans if they lost the base.
It’s possible the need to remove some troops in order to repair the damage done to our military will be claimed by the Bush Administration as a sign that victory is just around the corner. Necessity being the mother of invention. Maybe that can be sold outside the base. I personally doubt it can be sold to anyone outside the base, but what do I know? I thought the Swift-Boaters were a joke.
Surely, the Bush Administration knows there will be problems that will happen when we withdraw. Maybe they think, in the longer run, people will blame those problems on the Democrats. Again, I see anyone outside the base buying that. But what do I know?
I think Republicans are just playing politics with the war.
To assign motivation to the actions of Congressional Democrats to anything other than politics (same is true for Republicans) is being naive.
Obviously, despite the feelings of the hard-core left, the Democrats have looked around, and decided that this course of action is the only politically acceptable solution.
Which begs the question. If the American public is so four-square against the war, as the left would have us believe, why would there be such political risk in supporting their desired withdrawal?
Perhaps there is more support for the troops, for the current plan of action, and in the surge than some wish to believe.
Finally, how can anyone say ‘the modest and temporary successes of the surge strategy‘? Modest? All reports seem to indicate it is working better both critics and optimists thought it would. And claiming it is only ‘temporary’ is simply wishing for failure, because there is no way at this time to know if the successes are temporary or not. That can only be determined after the fact, and then only if it fails.
“That is because in the end the Democrats are much more concerned about job security than national security.”
Whatever the analysis, you got that right.
I don’t see how anyone can make that claim. The GAO report is famously negative.
Sorry. Most reports, with the particular exception of the GAO.
Which, btw, I agree is a pretty non-partisan organization.
Austin,
I think you’re only partially right. Critics of the surge have called it a failure even before it began, and many have grudgingly admitted it has shown some success. But so far I think that success is not as much as optimists were expecting and, more important, hasn’t yet translated into gains in the strategic arena. The pacification in Anbar is a good thing and the same strategy is ongoing in Diyala that looks to be working as well. But it’s important to not that these tribal leaders have turned away from AQ to the US and not to the Iraqi government. In fact, they are not even represented in the parliament for the most part. The larger issue of sectarianism remains and even if the military portion of the surge continues to show success that success will be fleeting unless the core political/cultural problems are addressed. So far, that hasn’t happened.
Kritter,
This simply isn’t true. The war effectively ends (for the US anyway) when no money is being appropriated toward it.
If Democrats vote against continued funding of the war, there is absolutely NOTHING Senate Republicans or the President can do about it. The President needs a majority in both houses to attain continued funding for the war. He can’t veto a bill that isn’t passed.
This isn’t about Democrats not having the votes. Its about Democrats refusing to do what it takes to end this war.
I’m sick and tired of people defending the Democrats as if they share no culpability for the perpetuation of this war, and I’m equally tired of those who defend the actions of this administration to perpetuate this war.
They don’t even need to do that. They can simply prevent any Iraq supplemental from coming to the floor for a vote. Of course, that would be political suicide, so I can’t condemn the Democrats for wanting to find a less-drastic alternative.
Of course, that would be political suicide
That was my original point. Why is it political suicide? Because, the American public are NOT as opposed to the Iraq war as the anti-war left is, or even the left in general, and the anti-war left is not as significant or as powerful a political force as they like to imagine themselves to be.