Credit Where Due

Watching yesterday's incredibly boring hearing for hours, then doing something else, then turning back the still-on hearing and watching it continue for more hours I was gripped by the sense that the Democratic leadership had really messed up. It would have been much better, I felt, to make Petraeus and Crocker feel the sting of either Senate Armed Services or Senate Foreign Relations, both of whose Democratic caucuses contain both stars and key role players who could have really gone to war.

From the vantage of the morning after, though, leading with the House -- and in particularly, with the mind-numbing combo-hearing format -- may have been a stroke of genius. The was was incredibly unpopular on the morning of September 10, 2007 so the Republicans needed not just a solid performance, but some kind of show-stopping one from Crocker and Petraeus to turn things around. A dull hearing guaranteed that the game would end in a draw, and a draw is a political win for the Democrats. The Senate Foreign Relations hearing that's about to stop should feature more interesting moments -- what will Hagel say? how will Obama do? etc. -- but it's a second day story.

The "surge" itself was hail mary strategy, and it didn't work. Then we had the surge of dog and pony shows, but that didn't bring anyone other than Michael O'Hanlon over to Bush's side. Now the surge of testimony has begun, and it looks to be, in essence, another dud. Something the administration's dead-ender supporters can feel good about, but that's not going to change the public's accurate perception that if ever there were a time when this policy could have been saved, it came and went years ago.

Comments

This all sounds plausible, except that the second day of hearings happen to be scheduled on 9/11. Surely that's got to be considered in the analysis.

Posted by dr | September 11, 2007 9:37 AM

Matt says, "the surge of dog and pony shows . . . didn't bring anyone other than Michael O'Hanlon over to Bush's side."

And of course, O'Hanlon was already on Bush's side to begin with.

Unless you were listening to NPR the other day, where I heard that O'Hanlon was a "war skeptic."

Posted by pdp | September 11, 2007 9:37 AM

Well, I'm glad you think the Democrats are "winning" something. I guess they are if "winning" has been defined down to "not messing up too badly while letting the administration execute another six-month can-kick."

Posted by Jake H. | September 11, 2007 9:46 AM

For Dems a draw means a resounding defeat.

It's worth repeating for the umpteenth time that Dems never fail to live up to their stereotype of small men as constructed by the Republicans.

Posted by gregor | September 11, 2007 9:48 AM

I think the key for Democrats is being seen as 'having their act together', which means having a policy. Most people already agree that there is no compelling reason for us to be in Iraq, and the tunnel-at-which-the-light-is-at-the-end-of leads out.

Posted by MattF | September 11, 2007 10:10 AM

MY is correct that the surge was a hail mary pass. Bush wants to leave this problem to his successor. Republicans in general don't want Iraq to be a major campaign issue in 2008. The politic issue for Bush and the Republicans is how to integrate the two. The clumsy resolution was the surge. It allows Bush to continue to debilitate substantive policy discussion for at least a year. It allows Republicans the opportunity to rebrand the war in Iraq and to be mildly critical of Bush. (Mistakes were made; we have the right policy now; it's working; we have to fight them there; never surrender.)

There is absolutely nothing Democrats in Congress can do, other than perhaps attempt to cut off funding for the entire thing.

Simply put, if there are anything like 130,000 troops still in Iraq come November 2008, it will be a Republican bloodbath.

Posted by SavageView | September 11, 2007 10:32 AM

"A dull hearing guaranteed that the game would end in a draw, and a draw is a political win for the Democrats."

The surge will continue. The drawdown will happen exactly as Petraeus wants-a marine brigade out this month, an army brigade out at Christmas, 130,000 troops in country next July.

If this is a win for the Democrats, so be it. I doubt if you really mean it, though.

Sk

Posted by Sk | September 11, 2007 10:35 AM

It's worth repeating for the umpteenth time that Dems never fail to live up to their stereotype of small men as constructed by the Republicans.

It's always good to see the Green Lantern Theory of Legislative Action expressed so vividly.

Posted by Gabriel | September 11, 2007 10:40 AM

If the surge continues, it will be a significant defeat for most Democrats. Democrats like Harry Reid were so invested in American defeat and failure before the surge of new troops was complete, that any military progress would put them in an awkward position, and it has. Now the question is should we continue a policy that has shown some positive results in the last couple of months for another six months or so, or should we bail on that policy prematurely while still keeping 100,000+ troops in Iraq.

At this point it's a no-brainer to continue the surge until next Spring and give it the maximum time to work.

BTW, has Matt ever mentioned Rep. Brian Baird here? He is a Dem who, unlike Matt, was against the Iraq War from the beginning, and also against the surge. He came back from Iraq recently convinced that there is sufficient progress to continue with the surge. To suggest that O'Hanlon's the only one who came to this conclusion is false.

Posted by Fred | September 11, 2007 10:52 AM

I would agree that optically, the Democrats win. The media will continue reporting on a pro-war bent, guided by the heroic general, but the populace will continue to oppose the war - meaning, politically, in November 2008, the Democrats will have the advantage.

This is despite the fact that they won't deserve it because they won't take the appropriate actions in response to public sentiment.
And, more, perhaps hundreds more American soldiers will be dead and more, perhaps thousands more Iraqis will be dead. Iraq will be no closer to stability and the debate will go on and on - with political and optical wins being chalked up by both sides from time to time. That's what it's all about, isn't it - scoring points so long as the people who die are meaningless to those keeping that score?

Posted by jp | September 11, 2007 11:05 AM

dr, i myself don't think that the hearing being on 9/11 makes the slightest difference to public opinion.

but today being 9/11 does make me especially intemperate towards obscenely stupid remarks like those of our close personal friend, Fred, with the usual offensively and aggresively disgusting remarks about being invested in american "defeat." what a complete asshole Fred is: osama bin laden is still alive and unpunished for murdering 3,000 americans; AQ is reinvigorated; our mission in afghanistan is slowly collapsing due to lack of attention; we have wasted oceans of blood and hundreds of billions of dollars on a complete diversion in iraq, and asshole Fred wants to continue to live on in a delusional parallel universe where there is all kinds of "progress" in iraq and anyone who thinks otherwise is invested in american defeat.

meanwhile, i have no idea why so many posters think the dems have it within their power to stop the war. does anyone here really think that the unitary executive, commander-in-chief trumps all administration cares whether the war is "funded" or not?

Posted by howard | September 11, 2007 11:35 AM

Now the question is should we continue a policy that has shown some positive results in the last couple of months for another six months or so, or should we bail on that policy prematurely while still keeping 100,000+ troops in Iraq.

This sentence has been written umpteen times since the war turned bad, and yet strangely, it's a different policy each time. We're always just starting to see signs of progress, that's the perennial message.

Posted by Steve | September 11, 2007 11:36 AM

gragor,

I think that you and Matthew mean two very different things when you talk about a "win" for the Democrats. Matthew is talking politically, and he is most likely correct. You seem to see a "win" meaning progress towards withdraw from Iraq. Now I happen to agree with your implied point that getting us out of Iraq is more important than increasing the political prospects of the Democratic party, especially since I've long ago given up on the idea that a victory by the Dems will make any real difference in our foreign policy, except perhaps a little bit at the margins, but evaluated from a purely political perspective, Matthew is entirely correct. Ironically, just about the only way that he could be wrong is if the surge really does end up being "successful" in any meaningful sense. But I think that both of us would agree with Matthew that such prospect is unlikely to say the least.

Posted by LarryM | September 11, 2007 11:38 AM

Didn't seem like anyone really explained why we're there.

A lot of the Dems sounded like no-nothing isolationists. Try substituting Israeli and Palestinian with Sunni, Shia and Kurd. Why bother spending money and lives trying to get these groups to stop killing themselves?

One of the congresspeople put it well, most of the Iraqis are under 40 and they've only known life under Saddam plus the last decade of sanctions. Saddam played one group off of another, which fed mutual resentment. I think this historical context is often missing.

By the way, tonight on HBO, there will be a movie about Pinochet who ruled in a similar way to Saddam. Good riddance to both of them.

Posted by Peter K. | September 11, 2007 11:42 AM

A draw is not a win for the Dems, not by a long shot. More importantly, it's not a win for either those in the military in Iraq or for Iraq itself. It remains unbelievable to me that the Dem leadership cannot do more with their narrow majority and both an incredibly weak President and incredibly unpopular war. They better damn well give them the funding to GET OUT OF IRAQ -- anything less is unacceptable.

Posted by cms | September 11, 2007 11:48 AM

"By the way, tonight on HBO, there will be a movie about Pinochet who ruled in a similar way to Saddam."

Pinochet doesn't belong in the same ballpark as Saddam. Saddam was responsible for orders of magnitude more deaths than Pinochet was during the "Dirty War". Two other differences: Pinochet gave up power voluntarily, and the economic reforms enacted during his rule enabled the subsequent Chilean democracy to have the most stable economy in South America since then.

Posted by Fred | September 11, 2007 11:54 AM

Fred,

The surge has temporarily reduced violence in Iraq to its lowest point since Jan 2006. Of course, one should remember that the level of violence in Jan 2006 was a crisis level of violence. So Iraq is still at a crisis level of violence. It's simply gone from a really, really, really , really, major crisis to a really, really, really major crisis. This reduction of violence is insufficient by itself to justify a continuing American presence there.

Now, if the Iraqi government had made considerable progress in achieving political reconciliation between the Shia & Sunni, then you would have a case that the surge is achieving long-term results that justify a continuing American presence there. However, there are no indications that any meaningful political reconciliatin is taking place.

Posted by eltoro | September 11, 2007 12:26 PM

"Pinochet doesn't belong in the same ballpark as Saddam."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinochet

Only a spoiled partisan of the right could say something like that Fred.

Ends justify the means, eh? It was a good day for the planet when the British police cuffed Pinochet.

Posted by Peter K. | September 11, 2007 4:37 PM

Peter K.,

"Only a spoiled partisan of the right could say something like that Fred."

Only a lazy leftist would post a link to Wikipedia as if that, by itself, refuted anything I wrote. Read what I wrote again and tell me how any of it is false.

"Ends justify the means, eh?"

Where did I say that?

Posted by Fred | September 11, 2007 4:48 PM