Good Lede

Paul Krugman: "There are two ways to describe the confrontation between Congress and the Bush administration over funding for the Iraq surge. You can pretend that it’s a normal political dispute. Or you can see it for what it really is: a hostage situation, in which a beleaguered President Bush, barricaded in the White House, is threatening dire consequences for innocent bystanders — the troops — if his demands aren’t met."

Indeed. Krugman seems disinclined to end his column on a defeast note, but the maddening thing of it is that all signs indicate that this tactic is likely to succeed and Bush will achieve his goal of ensuring that the war is left on the desk of the next president. Perhaps he thinks this'll mean it'll go down in the record books as something his successor "lost" rather than a catastrophic error he made.

Comments

Sigh. One can always rely upon Krugman for the most grotesque spin.

One could validly spin things in the other direction: the Dems are holding the troops hostage by tying withdrawal to funding - they know that widthdrawal is unacceptable to Bush so they put it into the same legislation, forcing Bush to veto funding whn he vetoes withdrawal.

And this is easily demonstrable: why don't the Dems prepare a separate piece of legislation for withdrawal? Because they know that it will be trivially vetoed. So they wrap it into the same legislation as the funding, thus holding the troops "hostage".

Krugman is the most partisan hack of any significance writing in America today. It is just embarrassing to see Matthew, who used to think for himself, parrotting Krugman idiocy.

Posted by a | April 23, 2007 1:04 AM

a, check your seperation of powers notebook.

In reality "withdrawal from iraq" either means the commander in chief pulls them out or congress withdraws funding so they are forced to come home.

Bush wants to keep them there. He'll veto anything that doesn't guarantee that US troops are dying in the sands of Arabia in Feb 2009.

The republicans who are ok with that will, I hope, lose many seats in the next election. They'll deserve to.

Posted by blatherskite | April 23, 2007 1:27 AM

Talk about a dishonest take.

Krugman is arguing FOR confrontation and you take it as confirmation of your earlier nonsensical post that Dems can't win on this?

My gawd, did you read the whole column? It is a rebuke of your type of thinking and points to the political dangers of adopting your defeatist and do nothing attitude. Krugman wrote:

"So how should Congress respond to Mr. Bush’s threats?

Everyone talks about the political risks of confrontation, recalling the backlash when Newt Gingrich shut down the federal government in 1995. But there’s a big difference between trying to force a fairly popular president to accept deep cuts in Medicare — which is what the 1995 confrontation was about — and trying to get a deeply unpopular, distrusted president to set some limits on an immensely unpopular war.

Meanwhile, there are big political risks on the other side. If Congress responds to a presidential veto by offering an even weaker bill, voters may well react with disgust, concluding that the whole debate over the war was nothing but political theater.

Anyway, never mind the political calculations. Confronting Mr. Bush on Iraq has become a patriotic duty . . ."

His column is a broadside at your type of thinking.

Did you miss that? Apparently, yet again, you did. You seem clueless on the Iraq issue and what the Congress can do. Go back to covering the NBA if this is what you are going to write on this.

Posted by Armando | April 23, 2007 1:39 AM

Armando, I don't think I've ever seen Matt say that it would be a good thing if Bush got his way on this. He's making a descriptive claim that he thinks the Democrats are going to unforuntately fold in the face of Bush's veto. Or, if I'm wrong about what Matt's said about this, could you link?

Posted by washerdreyer | April 23, 2007 1:44 AM

...but the maddening thing of it is that all signs indicate that this tactic is likely to succeed and Bush will achieve his goal of ensuring that the war is left on the desk of the next president.

I've been hearing all kinds of buzz, though (especially on this weekend's talking heads shows) about the surge needing to show results soon (by mid summer, or late summer) or else. Doesn't any of this emanate from GOP congressional sources? Bush may want to avoid an "L" but my guess is a growing gaggle of Republicans facing reelection in '08 would like to have the withdrawal well underway by then.

Posted by Jasper | April 23, 2007 1:48 AM

"Perhaps he thinks this'll mean it'll go down in the record books as something his successor "lost" rather than a catastrophic error he made."

Perhaps? Surely that's the plan, isn't it?

Posted by Renwick | April 23, 2007 1:56 AM

washerdreyer:

Of course he does not think it is a good thing. He just does not think Dems should do anything about it and now dishonestly states Krugman agrees with himn when Krugman is sayng exactly the opposite.

This is a dishonest and uninformed post to follow his most recent uninformed post on the subject.

He is 0 for 2 on the subject.

But let's face it, most every blog has been 0 for Iraq this year. Too busy writing about the all important who will remove residual forces in 2009 issue.

BTW, if the Debacle is not ended during the Bush Presidency, the answer is none of them will remove combat forces, much less residual ones. Who wants to run against "he/she lost Iraq."

Some Progressive blogosphere. Pathetic.

Posted by Armando | April 23, 2007 2:00 AM

The fact that it was Nixon, rather than LBJ, who eventually got U.S. troops out of Vietnam has certainly led to LBJ not being remembered as the man who lost Vietnam. Oh, wait, that's not true at all.

If Bush thinks that keeping the troops there until he leaves office is a political ploy to make him look better, he is both cynical and deluded. This is quite possible, but I suspect he is merely deluded - that he actually believes that we need to achieve "victory" in Iraq.

Posted by John | April 23, 2007 2:32 AM

I think there's a lot to be said for thinking it will be extremely difficult for a Democrat or even a Republican to start his or her term by pulling out troops.

1965 184300
1966 385300
1967 485600
1968 536100
1969 475200
1970 334600
1971 156800
1972 24200
1973 50

Where Armando is wrong, is that history shows us that we will be able to start removing troops in 2009 with all but 50 troops remaining in 2012.

Apart from that, everything seems to be going according to plan.

Posted by jerry | April 23, 2007 2:37 AM

PK's right. I say the Dems need to bring out the hostage meme.

I'll suggest my own: we won the war in 2003, but we failed at nation-building. It has the advantage of being actually true. And there's the ironic turnaround with Bush's 2000 debate bit about being against nation building.

Posted by chris | April 23, 2007 3:01 AM

Everybody I think is still underestimating the intermediate consequences od withdrawal from Iraq. Either a Shia ethnic cleansing of Arab Sunnis or the return of the Baathists will send the ME into flames. After that the oil wells burn;after that the Second Great Depression. I am not sure we can withdraw without losing a third or more of the Army on the Basra road to Kuwait.

We are not taking Vietnam;we are talking more like the 30s or 40s. I am not all sure the left is prepared for such circumstances; I am not sure the Democratic Elite will allow it.

President Edwards (whomever) can try to avoid the responsibility for Iraq; but the years of negative GDP with double digit interest rates and inflation will require measures that no President will...hell I have no idea. We are probably looking at 1-2 percent of GDP for a decade simply to rebuild & maintain a reasonable defense.

I do believe that the Right has engineered a catastrophe of 1860s or 1930s proportions and I don't think we are ready.

Krugman is ready:he saw it coming in 2002 and called the Bush administration "revolutionaries". He did not use the term lightly.

Armando is wrong. I don't think elections matter much or will help anymore. I'll give 30% chance that 2008 doesn't come off. If you want to confront Bush and stop the war it likely needs to be extra-political and extra-legal and I'll ask Armando to shit or get of the pot.

If not blood in American streets, then let us just try to muddle through and keep the status quo, which means no better no worse in the ME. We are not leaving Iraq.

Posted by bob mcmanus | April 23, 2007 4:40 AM

I mean that is the point of the Krugman column, isn't it?

Hostages. Violence

Republicans are willing to bankrupt the country and kill thousands of Americans and millions overseas to achieve their political ends. Are y'all ready to rumble? I doubt it.

Posted by bob mcmanus | April 23, 2007 4:51 AM

I still find it tough to buy the Dem position that we should withdraw from Iraq, because it's pointless/meaningless, etc., but we shouldn't even start to withdraw for 15 months. Is that they best you can do? That's lame.

If you really believe that we no strategic interest in or responsibility for what happens in Iraq from this point on (but that staying in Afghanistan is strategically important/worthwhile), and that the best thing we can do is withdraw, why wait over a year to start doing that?

General Petraeus is in D.C. this week. Dems in Congress should ask him, simply: If you received an order to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, what's the quickest you could do so without taking on undue risk? What resources would you need to do so? If Petraeus says all U.S. troops could be pulled out relatively safely with three months (or whatever) of lead time, and it would cost $x billion, Dems should send Bush a budget to cover exactly that amount and explain why they are doing so.

Posted by Fred | April 23, 2007 8:55 AM

There's a column in the Boston Globe by a guy who advised Clinton during the 1995 showdown with Gingrich. He thinks the Democrats are making a big political mistake being confrontational.

I don't think they're making a big mistake, but I DO think their actions need to be evaluated wrt the political consequences, not the immediate troop-removal consequences. Let's face it, the troops aren't coming home until we have a new president, in all likelihood.

I think Krugman is a master of biting polical rhetoric, and his phrasing, while it sounds a little extreme, could easily become conventional wisdom if enough people would just keep repeating it. This, or something like it, is what the Democrats need to do to win the political confrontation.

Posted by Jim W | April 23, 2007 9:41 AM

He just does not think Dems should do anything about it and now dishonestly states Krugman agrees with himn when Krugman is sayng exactly the opposite.

Calling people dishonest is pretty serious. Calling someone dishonest by attributing opinions to him that everyone can see he does not hold is just stupid. I'm assuming this is not the Kos Armando, cause that guy seemed fairly bright.

Posted by nolaboyd | April 23, 2007 9:51 AM

The writing style seems very similar to Dailykos Armando's.

He just does not think Dems should do anything about it and now dishonestly states Krugman agrees with himn when Krugman is sayng exactly the opposite.

I don't think this statement is accurate.

Posted by JP | April 23, 2007 10:07 AM

Jim:

That guy who advised Democrats in 1995 and who thinks it would be a big mistake for the Democrats to confront the Republicans is Doug Schoen of Penn and Schoen. Penn and Schoen are pollsters who are known distorters of polling data. Stan Greenberg caught them doing this in 1995 and wrote an article exposing them.

Penn and Schoen are perfect examples of spineless establishement Democrats. Did you notice that, while Schoen mentions having polled the issue in 1995, he doesn't use a single piece of polling data to support his argument now?

As Armando argued above, there is a world of difference between 1995 and now. In 1995 the confrontation was between great comunicator and reasonably popular Bill Clinton taking on an unpopular Congress lead by the even less popular Newt Gingrich on issues where Clinton's position was very popular and the Republicans desire to slash Mediacre and Medicaid and education and the environment were not.

In 2007, those positions are completely reversed. Bush is incredibly unpopular and so is his position on Iraq. Congress is reasonably popular and leaders like Pelosi are far more popular than Newt Gingrich was.

This is a fight we could win if we got some balls and didn't just assume, as people like Obama have been doing, that we will lose.

Armando has argued that we don't need majorities because all we need to do is force a showdown by NOT funding. This argument is very attractive although I don't know enough about legislative procedure to be sure he is right, but its well worth looking into.

One thing is for sure. We should definitely not simply accept Bush's frame that 1) cutting off funds 18 months in advance is the same as cutting off soldiers' supply of bullets in the field or 2) that it is the Democrats who would be cutting off the funds, after all it is Bush who would be taking the final step in the form of a veto -- and all so he can get his way when a large majority of Americans disagree with him.

For godssakes, let's not always be a bunch of frightened pussies. Is there nothing that we will stand and fight for?

Posted by Cause Disturbance | April 23, 2007 10:18 AM

Do we point out that Fred is lying, or do we ignore him?

Posted by Matt Weiner | April 23, 2007 10:25 AM

Bush plan is to drag this out till January 2009 and dump it on the lap of his successor who will be forced to make the difficult choices. The shit will hit the fan under his successor. That way Bush is hoping history books will blame his successor or at least split the blame 50-50 as opposed to him getting 100% of the blame.

Posted by DonB | April 23, 2007 11:01 AM

Weiner:

"Do we point out that Fred is lying, or do we ignore him?"

Is this just your lazy way of saying that you disagree with what I wrote but can't articulate why you think I'm wrong?

Posted by Fred | April 23, 2007 11:05 AM

Clinton/Newt example is like apples and oranges.

1) Clinton was fighting for a popular program; medicare. The war is very unpopular.

2) Newt shut down the govt. There is not going to be a shutdown in this case.

Posted by DonB | April 23, 2007 11:05 AM

Bush can do all sorts of sleazy dishonest things to try and avoid taking any blame for "losing" Iraq, but never forget the main fact that Bush hasn't won his war. He'll keep trying to pretend until January 20th, 2009 that "victory is at hand", but there's only so many do-overs you get before there's the inevitable Emperor-has-no-clothes moment.

Posted by David W. | April 23, 2007 11:15 AM

Hey Matt:

You're a smart guy and an investigative journalist with knowledgable sources. Why don't you look into Armando's strategy of simply not-funding Iraq (see his posts on TalkLeft) and figure out if it is hypothetically viable or not -- particularly from the standpoint of legislative procedure -- and then enlighten the rest of us?

Posted by Cause Disturbance | April 23, 2007 11:16 AM

Fred, you said "I still find it tough to buy the Dem position that we should withdraw from Iraq, because it's pointless/meaningless, etc., but we shouldn't even start to withdraw for 15 months." (Emphasis yours.)

Yet the bill passed by the Democratic Senate sets as a goal that we start withdrawing within 120 days of passage, and finish by March 2008. The House bill mandates starting in March 2008 and finishing by August 31, 2008; if benchmarks are not meant withdrawal starts much sooner.

So your comment was wrong from top to bottom. If you've been paying the least attention to this issue, you know this; if not, you could have found it out by thirty seconds of Googling.

This concludes my fact-checking/troll-feeding duty.

Posted by Matt Weiner | April 23, 2007 12:08 PM

"1) cutting off funds 18 months in advance is the same as cutting off soldiers' supply of bullets in the field"

Actually cutting off the bullets, simply stopping funding and letting Petraeus and Pace figure out what to do, is the only serious way to go. Do it now.

Now I don't know if Petraeus & Pace would simply let the soldiers die, but I doubt it. But if Bush went to impoundment and told the joint chiefs "bullets. We're staying" my guess is that the JCS would say:"We take the hint from Congress. Use the money for transport."

And Bush being humiliated by the military would be a good first step in the horrific domestic battle that would ensue.

No, it will not happen. We are not leaving Iraq.

Posted by bob mcmanus | April 23, 2007 12:20 PM

Weiner:

"the bill passed by the Democratic Senate sets as a goal that we start withdrawing within 120 days of passage, and finish by March 2008. The House bill mandates starting in March 2008 and finishing by August 31, 2008"

I made a mistake: Neither bill proposes waiting 15 months to start withdrawal, one proposes waiting 4 months to start and the other 11 months; neither envisions completing a withdrawal before March of '08. Despite my mistake (not a lie), my general question remains a valid one (and one as yet unanswered by you): Why wait so long? Why not ask the theater commander (who is in town now) what the shortest practicable time frame is and propose that? Why should American troops be risking their lives in Iraq next February or March if the war is pointless?

Posted by Fred | April 23, 2007 1:51 PM

Given that Petraeus was hand-picked as the only person who thought the surge would work, they might not think they'd get a good answer from him.

Posted by Matt Weiner | April 23, 2007 3:24 PM

Given that Petraeus was hand-picked as the only person who thought the surge would work . . .

I'm still waiting for one of the people who toss around remarks about whether the surge will 'work' to explain what that means. Is there a generally understood meaning that I have somehow missed, and if so where can I find it articulated?

Posted by David Tomlin | April 23, 2007 4:00 PM

"Perhaps he thinks this'll mean it'll go down in the record books as something his successor "lost" rather than a catastrophic error he made."

Bush thinks he'll win. He needs to think that. Bush has constructed a narrative of his life that goes like this: there was a drunken loser who found Jesus and was picked by God for great things (remember "God wants me to be President" back in 1999?) and told by God to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam.

Withdrawal from Iraq would destroy that narrative. Bush will never do that.

Aramando:

The claim:

"He (Matthew) just does not think Dems should do anything about it.." is silly. He doesn't think the Dems CAN do anything about it.

And this:

Who wants to run against "he/she lost Iraq."

is irrevelant. No rational person (certain extreme Jesus types fail this test) will ever think anyone but Bush lost Iraq. The implied parallel with China (I can't recall anyone ever asking "Who lost Vietnam?", largely because by the time we left no one though it was worth "winning" in the first place) fails to hold.

Posted by Psycho-Historian | April 23, 2007 6:28 PM

Psycho:

I'd like to see someone explain why Armando's strategy of not-funding won't work. I don't know enough about legislative procedure to say it definitely would work, but it seems like it could. Matt? Anyone? Care to make a substantive criticism of Armando's defund-by-doing-nothing proposal?

Posted by Cause Disturbance | April 23, 2007 6:58 PM

Cause:

I haven't read Armando's proposal, and therefore have no opinion about it. Nor am I going to, not because of any animus towad Armando but just because of lack of time.

BTW. as I read him Armando is quite correct about Krugman's view. I think he thinks that Krugman is right in saying that the Democrats should confront Bush (sorry about that syntax). If that is what he does thInk we agree there as well. I'm just claiming he is wrong about what MAT thinks, and about the political impact of pulling out troops on whomever does it.

Posted by Psycho-Historian | April 23, 2007 11:39 PM

Re: Either a Shia ethnic cleansing of Arab Sunnis or the return of the Baathists will send the ME into flames.

I don't think either is particularly likely. The fate of Iraq is more likely to be similar to that of Yugoslavia: lots of woe and misery in Iraq itself, but nothing spreading beyond its borders. (For one thing, it would not be in anyone's interest to allow that and while China, Russia, Iran etc. may be pleased to watch America fail in Iraq none of them want a mass conflagration in the Middle East). Long term we will probably end up with the three state solution: A Shi'a Iraq under Iranian tutelage, a Sunni Iraq, probably under Saudi protection, and a Kurdistan with US bases and a mightily peeved Turkey on its borders.

Posted by JonF | April 24, 2007 12:31 PM