I'd say the main takeaway from moderate congressional Republicans' big meeting at the White House is that most of these "moderate" Republicans are what you might prefer to call vulnerable Republicans. After all, if there was actually anything moderate about their opinions of Iraq they wouldn't have decided that 2002 was a good year for lockstep support of the Bush administration's Iraq policy that was well followed-up by offering lockstep support of the Bush administration's Iraq policy in 2003, after which 2004 turned out to be an ideal moment for lockstep support of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, much as 2005 was also a good year for lockstep support of the Bush administration's Iraq policy and, indeed, that in 2006 lockstep support of the Bush administration's Iraq policy was just what the doctor ordered.
Even today, the moderates aren't doing anything -- collaborating, say, with the less die-hard anti-war House Dems to pass a bill -- that will change America's Iraq policy. Instead, they're just putting up a big showy display, "telling the president that conditions needed to improve markedly by fall or more Republicans would desert him on the war." And in the fall, what will they do? And by then, do they really expect people to give them any credit for it?
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Heads in the Sand
matt, you're flirting with what actually moderates anybody in politics, namely the negative impact of/reacion to any given policy agenda. we'd all be extremists if everything we believed should be implemented turned out to be 100% successful. obviously that doesn't include religious extremists, who define success outside of the visible world.
Posted by Bill | May 10, 2007 9:55 AM