But you are all missing the point or more precisely making sure that the Republicans/conservatives get more bashing then does the Democrats which………

John McCain Says Democrats Have Lost Momentum On Iraq Policy

This is about the Democrats…….not about the Republicans. As soon as anyone says anything remotely negative about the democrats everyone steps up and starts bashing Republicans.

I for one did not imply the Republicans are saints or have it all together…….I simply was posting what I believe to be the strategy that the democrats have employed that has brought them to this point in their political lives.

I Believe it to be true. It is not about weather they are good bad or indifferent. They had a strategy and they worked it to perfection and now they are simply readjusting that strategy to make way for the leadership that most certainly will be handed to them in 2008.

Im sorry……..but I never liked Kool Aide.

Like I said before – this is not a black or white situation. You can’t say “end the war now or let it go on indefinitely.” Neither of those is an intelligent or viable option. What we need is for people to work together across party lines to find a happy medium, whether it’s a phased withdrawal or benchmarks or a timetable or something else entirely. Letting Bush continue on with more of the same won’t work. Flinging mud at opposing political parties won’t work. Digging your heels in and refusing to work on a compromise won’t work.

Bush is still in the drivers seat, saying I’ll take my hands off the wheel if you want but the resulting crash is your fault.

Let’s quickly refresh our memories on applicable ConLaw 101. Art. I § 1 vests “[a]ll legislative powers herein granted … in a Congress of the United States”; § 8 grants Congress the power “[t]o … support armies” (but expressly qualifies that grant saying that “no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years”), and § 10 provides that “[n]o money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law.” So: the government may only spend money appropriated by law, only Congress can make law (and thus, appropriations), and appropriations for the army are expressly limited to two years. Any money spent after the money appropriated by the last Congress – and certainly any new expenditures – must come from new appropriations, that must pass this Congress. Democrats like to toot their horn about how much the war costs. Who’s writing the cheques?

Are you getting the picture now? You don’t have to override a veto. You have merely to stop signing the checks. But they haven’t done that and they aren’t going to do that, because, that would bring down the final curtain on the war – and as I said above, “[t]he goal of Congressional Democrats has been and continues to be to look like they oppose the war while doing nothing that will end it….”

And its impossible for the dems to have lost momentum on the war, because they don’t have any. Until they enough votes to override a veto the course of the war, ENTIRELY, is still in Bush’s hands. They can propose all the bills they want, but unless it meets the presidents approval its dead in the water. Its like people suddenly forget how the gov’t works when they watch the news.

The goal of Congressional Democrats has been and continues to be to look like they oppose the war while doing nothing that will end it; consider their incentive structure – while the war continues it provides them with a useful political tool, while if they force the matter by cutting off funding, they risk paying a political price similar to the aftermath of Vietnam

And the aftermath will be 10 times worse than in Vietname.

Sorry, the Democrats aren’t going to do anything. They can’t, given the almost inevitable result of doing what they promised.

Read any thread on any post, and you will see a stream of comments beginning with ‘the Democrats this… or the Democrats that…”
The reality is that the defining characteristic of the Democrats is that they are not all of one mind about anything. It makes it more difficult for the leadership, but it’s a much healthier state of mind than the speak-with-one voice approach. The latter stifles intelligent, individual thought, IMO.

Having so many internal squabbles makes Democrats much more open to compromise across party lines. At the end of the day, they are more pragmatic,

From what I see of conservative commentary, their internal debates are more about who has ‘betrayed”
their principles. Focusing so extensively on not betraying principles pretty much shuts the door on compromise, it seems to me.

I know I’m painting with a broad brush, and I will be the first to accept examples of contradiction in specific instances. I do it to point out how off-base it is to put all Democrats in one box.

Particularly when it comes to the Iraq war, their internal differences should not only be acknowledged, they should be lauded. It’s the differences that lead to a broad discussion. Sticking to absolutist slogans like ‘victory’ is downright dangerous, when no one knows in which direction ultimate victory lies.

So the Democrats want to sit down with the Republicans and discuss options for the Iraq war. I think that’s great. It’s exactly how things should have been working from the very beginning. Lately, politics has been too involved in winning for the Party, and not nearly concerned enough with doing what is right for America as a whole. Complain all you want about Defeatocrats and the party that wants to lose the war, but the only thing you’ll accomplish is more partisan bickering and more stalling. If you really want us to have some sort of victory in Iraq, you’ll encourage your representatives to work with everyone in Congress, regardless of their political parties, to find a workable solutions.

They refused to acknowledge anything positive and the incessant drum of “THE WAR IS LOST” coming from the left worked.

Now they have a day of reckoning coming. They must square what they have been saying while out of power with what is the reality when they are IN power.

This is simply the democrats realizing that the Republicans and the rest of our allies are RIGHT. We cannot flee IRAQ and leave it in turmoil, much as we could not flee South Korea and hope it would survive or we could not flee Vietnam and hope that it was going to survive against both the North Vietnamese, China and The USSR.

Reality is reality and the reality is that the democrats will most likely be in power and when they are…..they will have to put up or shut up. They will have to deal with those Allies whom they claim Bush has alienated yet who will be demanding that there is no way the USA can FLEE IRAQ.

Its pay back time and now the Democrats are just positioning themselves for the stretch run to the 2008 elections.

This was always for them about staying in power. It was never about what is good for the USA or Iraq or the World. They now have accomplished task one….staying in power……now they have to worry about task two…….keeping the world from going up in flames.

Krugman is also off-base: he’s probably accurately describing what we will see in the hearings. But then, on the Sunday talk show circuit and anywhere that they can find a camera, they’ll be singing the same tune they’ve been whistling since they discovered that all the hot air coming out of the leftosphere will fill a party’s sails quite effectively.