The Restive Base

I saw Paul Krugman speak last night to a packed house at Temple Sinai at a book event organized by DC's famous Politics & Prose bookstore for his The Conscience of a Liberal. The audience was clearly interested in what Krugman had to say about his book, which focuses almost entirely on the political economy of wealth and income inequality, but by far the biggest moment of the night was when he mentioned offhand in response to a question that he's "very disappointed" in the Democratic congressional majority's inability to end the war.

That prompted enormous applause from the crowd. So enormous, in fact, that I think he felt the need to start walking it back, taking account of the objective difficulty of the math in the House and (especially) Senate and putting the real onus where it belongs -- on the Republicans. And those are, of course, fair points. But still it is hard to shake the sense that a lot of Democratic members and strategists and assorted other hacks basically just don't think there's any wastage of lives and money in Iraq that it's worth taking political risks to prevent.

Comments

If you ever do shake that sense, then you need to check yourself into an asylum to have the sense shaken back into you, because it's perfectly and obviously true.

Posted by ostap | October 24, 2007 10:19 AM

The real question is: at what electoral price?

Congressional Democrats are banking on the belief that progressives will come out in record numbers in 2008 to repudiate the Bush Administration. On the surface, this certainly seems like a safe bet. And yet - to steal Matt's words - it is hard to shake the sense that that pissing off progressives so thoroughly might hurt Congressional Democrats at the polls in 2008 in some way, shape or form.

Posted by owenz | October 24, 2007 10:40 AM

Do the hacks just think that it's not worth taking political risks to end the Iraq War? Or do they secretly support it? After all, they feed from the same trough as Republicans.

The political risk that Democrats refuse to adress is their Culture of Weakness. Every time they cave to Bush to appear strong on national security, they replay a script that highlights their weakness. They lack leadership qualities, a sense of purpose, courage or conviction. They prefer to react rather than take responsibility.

The major Democratic presidential candidates are a case in point. Hillary's position on the war is totally indecipherable, and to the extent she attacks the war, she focuses on its mismanagement. The others lack the strength of character to fight either Bush or Hillary. And to make matters worse, none have any track record of accomplishment on anything.

So it looks like 2008 will be a choice between a strong authoritarian who can lead, and a Democrat who shows no signs of being able to accomplish anything and who can be bullied by Republicans, their Democratic collaborators, and the media.

Posted by JohnH | October 24, 2007 10:54 AM

i didn't have a chance yesterday to comment when matthew talked about how dems are afraid of any showdown on the issue of "terrorism," and today matthew notes the fear of a showdown on iraq, and the question is: what are they afraid of?

is it, as johnh suggests, an abused spouse syndrome? is it that they read different polling data than the rest of us? is is that they are stupid? is it that their advisers are gop plants?

Posted by howard | October 24, 2007 11:00 AM

Yeah why is this?

If only there were a good, smart book about American foreign policy that tried to answer this question...

Posted by lemuel pitkin | October 24, 2007 11:02 AM

Look, if we get one of the Republican candidates elected in '08, the war will go on until 2013. So yeah, I don't want the Democratic majority to take political risks to end the war unless what they are trying has a very good chance of ending the war.

For example, people complain that the Democrats haven't blocked the supplemental appropriations. But if they do that, Bush and Cheney won't bring the troops home--they'll take money from the general defense budget and bitch about the president's commander-in-chief powers and the poor suffering troops. Unless, at that point, the Democrats have the votes to impeach and convict Bush and Cheney, they'll have suffered a political defeat and failed to bring the war to an end.

So, yeah, I can't get too mad at the congressional leadership for failing to stop the war--we have another election to win before that's doable.

Posted by rea | October 24, 2007 11:17 AM

I agree with JohnH. You appeal to voters by having strong convictions and acting on them. People in general find that sort of thing principled and they like it. This incessant mother-may-I back-and-forth undermines that sense completely and contributes to a feeling that our beliefs are cheap and easily fungible.

I also agree with ostap: Big Media Matt better not "shake that sense" because it corresponds with reality. When you hear MY start to apologize for the hacks and make excuses for the difficult political environment they have to work in, we'll know the Dark Side has won and that another promising young liberal has been coopted. Doesn't look like that at the moment, though. Rock on, Matt!

Posted by scott | October 24, 2007 11:18 AM

rea, broadly speaking i agree with you: bush already used afghanistan money for iraq, and invaded iraq without an appropriation, so the idea that the lawless administration would abide by the appropriations process when the commander-in-chief wants to keep the war going has always struck me as odd.

but it's one thing to note the structural difficulties in stopping the war: it's another to cower in the corner about them, and about FISA, and about torture, and about iran.

and when you put that whole package together, the question remains: what are they afraid of?

Posted by howard | October 24, 2007 11:25 AM

"Look, if we get one of the Republican candidates elected in '08, the war will go on until 2013."

Have you been following the news even a little? Hillary and Obama have both said that if they're elected, we'll probably still be in Iraq in 2013. Since that's the case, why not try to succeed in stabilizing the country? I think that's what's going through Hillary's mind. It's fun to beat up on Bush over Iraq, but what if she actually wins? I mean, if she knew now she would be the next president, she'd want Bush to get as much accomplished in Iraq between now and then as possible. She's probably not the only Dem who feels this way. So, they'll probably huff and puff and in the end fund the supplemental to get money into the hands of our Provincial Reconstruction Teams, get MRAPs to our troops, etc.

Posted by Juan | October 24, 2007 11:27 AM

If the Democrats do anything binding on Iraq, the Republicans and their media can use it to pin all manner of failures, military and economic, on the Dems; and could probably even use it as an excuse to enter Iran. "If only the Dems hadn't done X!! We had credible information that Tehran was about to cave on nuclear inspections, but then the Dems did X!!!!"

Posted by tony | October 24, 2007 11:35 AM

Hillary and Obama have both said that if they're elected, we'll probably still be in Iraq in 2013.

In fairness, Juan, I don't think either of them said this. I assume you're talking about there response to Tim Russert's overly simplistic question: "Will there be American troops in Iraq six years from now?" Neither Clinton nor Obama would say definitively that, no there will not be any troops in Iraq in 2013 under any circumstances. Far too much has been made of these answers. I think both of them were right not to answer such a fatuous question.

A better question would be, do you support the withdrawal of all American combat troops from Iraq. To be honest, I'm not sure what answers they've given to this question.

Posted by Rob Mac | October 24, 2007 11:48 AM

I think it's pretty clear that most of the Democrats are just much more afraid of AIPAC than they are of their "base."

After all, Dean had the base, he had the bloggers, he even had a lot of Internet-raised money and a Jewish wife and family, but I have the strong impression that AIPAC and its cohorts just blew him up...

Posted by RKU | October 24, 2007 11:50 AM

The problem is the Dems do all the math every time on everything and then believe that it's not possible to win x, y or z. And then they fret over how it will look when they fail. How the republicans would castigate them for trying.

They never seem to realize that they're not operating in a vacuum. They have the ability to shift the momentum, change the dialogue, redefined the argument in any way they choose. Which can mean they'll win nearly every cause they go after right now. It's pathetic. It's as though they're content to just be at the ready for when the swell of popular sentiment grows too large to ignore and then they can flick their switch, act like they had an impact and claim victory.

Posted by adam | October 24, 2007 12:05 PM

I have called the DNC, the DSCC, and the DCCC, and told them to put my phone number on their "do not call" list: my money, this cycle, is not going to their organizations, but to primary challengers who will better represent my beliefs and principles than some of the worthless, gutless idiots who currently call themselves Democrats.

Posted by low-tech cyclist | October 24, 2007 12:20 PM

Eli Lake addresses this issue in the New York Sun ("End of a Movement"). A taste:

"The People. United. Can in fact be defeated. Well not exactly, but this must be what America's anti-war movement is thinking as Congress and the president iron out the funding for the war with no danger of the Democrats attaching a withdrawal date to the bill. The Dems don't have the votes.

It's enough to deflate the spirits of our nation's most hardened pacifists. Take Medea Benjamin, the leader of Code Pink, an association of mainly senior citizen women who dress up and shout slogans at Congressional war hearings. In an interview in the current issue of Mother Jones, Ms. Benjamin said that she doubted that the troops would be withdrawn even within a year's time. "Well, I think it's kind of silly to talk about it because it's just not going to happen," she said. Code Pink now is hoping to end the war by the end of 2008.

It's an extraordinary statement for the leader of an organization that produced a YouTube ad last month featuring women in pink jockey outfits riding Democratic leaders of Congress like they were horses. The narrator tells the viewer: "With your help we can dominate Congress with peacemakers and finally end this illegal, immoral and unconstitutional occupation." Apparently the plan for peacemaker domination has run into some snags."

Posted by Fred | October 24, 2007 12:30 PM

Rember the fear that gripped the country from 9/11 through the first months of the invasion of Iraq? No one wanted to say anything that might be miscast as unpatriotic or "weak." The flags fluttered across the TV screens like every channel was FOX News. You remember.

Well, amazingly enough, most of the country woke up from that zombified, fearful state sometime in 2005. Forget the 25% deadenders running around still pissing their pants -- I'm talking about the sane majority. The only trouble is the the Democrats in congress are still operating as if it is 2002. They are so scared that big bad Bill O'Reilly is going to call them names that they filter every decision through that fear. Which makes them not only seem weak and pathetic, but stupid.

The Democrats need to stop chumpatizing themselves. They could also grow some balls.

Posted by jim | October 24, 2007 12:42 PM

Let's assume for a moment that congress really could force Bush to pull out of Iraq. (An assumption I don't really agree with, but hey.) But withdrawal is a complex thing, both strategically and diplomatically. How do you think Bush would go about the withdrawal?

Do you think Bush actually cares about the troops or would rather the withdrawal cost many lives to make the Democrats look bad?

Do you think Bush really cares about all the Iraqis who helped us there and let them move to the US or provide any other form of protection, or do you think he'll just abandon them to their own?

Do you think Bush would take advantage of the withdrawal to work the diplomatic side?

Do you think Bush would do any of this competently?

The only reason to stay in Iraq a day longer is the belief that a later withdrawal will produce a better result. Right now, with a Democrat bound to be in office in a bit over a year, I think that reason holds. Get the troops out of Iraq, but don't have Bush be the one to do it.

Posted by Mark | October 24, 2007 1:49 PM

The real question is why liberals in America are in general so cowardly in political debate. It seems there is noone willing to speak clearly on anything.

For example, how many of you here would be willing to say that starting a war with Iran would be "wrong"? Not inappropriate - not pragmatically unsound - but "wrong"?

How many are willing to say "America should have single-payer health-care"? It has to be said by someone in public for it to happen.

How many are willing to call Bush a "a former alcoholic" rather than "Chimp" in public debate?

Posted by Bengt Larsson | October 24, 2007 2:30 PM

I think it's pretty clear that most of the Democrats are just much more afraid of AIPAC than they are of their "base."

The saddest moment of the Dean campaign came when he publicly apologized for saying the US should be even-handed in dealing with the Israelis and Palestinians. Apparently "even-handed" is a bad word to AIPAC and its allies. Talk about the power of the Israel lobby.

Still, there's definitely a whole lot more going on here that fealty to the Likud hawks. The Democrats definitely self-chumpify, and I think the analysis here, that this comes from excessive poll watching is spot on. There is much to be said for going down in flames on a given issue on principal alone from time to time. The short term cost is well worth it for what it gives you in changing the terms of the debate over the long term.

The Democratic "leadership" suffers from a chronic inability to lead. Dodd getting out in front on the telecom immunity deal is a notable exception. I don't really want the guy to be president, and would it not lead to an unending stream of pleas in my email box, I'd be tempted to give him some cash for this alone.

Posted by Rob Mac | October 24, 2007 2:43 PM

The Greens have never looked better.

Look at how the Dems treated Pete Stark for the unforgivable crime of candor. All the Dems know is cowardice and betrayal. In the concise words of IOZ:

Jesus.... Listen. He doesn’t love you, and no matter how many times he apologizes and tells you he loves you, he’s never going to stop hitting you and the kids.

Posted by sglover | October 24, 2007 3:08 PM

Speaking of wasting money in Iraq, aWol is on his way to breaking the Treasury such that any Democratic president who follows him will be absolutely unable to implement any favorable policies. Taxes will be necessarily raised and so the Dems will once again be called tax-and-spenders, and even by raising taxes on the wealthiest they will be pissing in the wind as far as being able to balance the budget.

Posted by Hedley Lamarr | October 24, 2007 3:12 PM

Hedley Lamarr,

Then for the benefit of the Democratic Party, you should vote Republican next year. Let Romney or Rudy finish cleaning up Iraq and get enough Dems on board with solutions to put our entitlement programs on fiscally sound footing. Then you will be free to propose new entitlements, give every kid baby bonds, etc.

Posted by Fred | October 24, 2007 3:16 PM

The problem is the Dems do all the math every time on everything and then believe that it's not possible to win x, y or z. And then they fret over how it will look when they fail. How the republicans would castigate them for trying.

================================================

That's because they're the reality-based community

Posted by Campesino | October 24, 2007 3:17 PM

If the Democrats do anything binding on Iraq, the Republicans and their media can use it to pin all manner of failures, military and economic, on the Dems; and could probably even use it as an excuse to enter Iran. "If only the Dems hadn't done X!! We had credible information that Tehran was about to cave on nuclear inspections, but then the Dems did X!!!!"

Look, if it isn't clear to you by now, then I don't know why you follow public affairs. Whatever happens in Iraq. the Republicans will pin the blame on the Democrats. In fact, they'll try to attach blame for things that didn't even happen, pseudo-"issues" that their agitprop machinery spins out of thin air. It is what the Republican Party has been doing, like clockwork, for at least 20 years. Not one thing has changed in GOP disinfo ops since Willie Horton and the Great Flag Burning Crisis of '88.

Now, if the Dems haven't figured this out by now, they're even dumber than I think they are, which would put them at some kind of aleph-one level of transfinite stupidity, a level of dumbness that only a deity could strive for. Mere humans can only speculate about this omnidunceness, so I don't think if explains the Dems.

If the Dems behaved something like real leaders with real beliefs, the GOP ankle biting won't be any more of an annoyance than any other chigger. But they've had the better part of a year to at least pretend to be statesmen, and it's pretty clear they're not up to it. What they're up to, why they're in public life at all, is to get their hands on the loot and the status. That's it.

Posted by sglover | October 24, 2007 3:28 PM

sglover:

Now, if the Dems haven't figured this out by now, they're even dumber than I think they are, which would put them at some kind of aleph-one level of transfinite stupidity, a level of dumbness that only a deity could strive for. Mere humans can only speculate about this omnidunceness, so I don't think if explains the Dems.

Are you a "Dem", sglover?

If the Dems behaved something like real leaders with real beliefs, the GOP ankle biting won't be any more of an annoyance than any other chigger. But they've had the better part of a year to at least pretend to be statesmen, and it's pretty clear they're not up to it. What they're up to, why they're in public life at all, is to get their hands on the loot and the status. That's it.

Go get them! You are a leader, aren't you?

Posted by Bengt Larsson | October 24, 2007 3:56 PM

Nobody is faulting the Democrats for not getting out of Iraq. What people do blamce them for is that THEY ARE NOT TRYING. Ergo, large numbers of them agree with Bush and want to be in Iraq. The only alternative is that they are too weak, fearful or lazy to try.

When I had performance reviews in business and did not meet an objective, I could only mitigate the failure by proving that I had done everything humanly possible to meet the objective. Sometimes even that tack was not enough to save my skin. The problem with the Democrats is that they occasionally squawk a bit and then have the audacity to expect voters to think that they are actually trying to get something done.

Posted by JohnH | October 24, 2007 4:19 PM

Bengt Larrson,

Aren't there some political issues you could be arguing about in your own country in your incomprehensible language? Why are you so interested in our politics?

Posted by Steve | October 24, 2007 4:20 PM

Steve, I don't know whether you have noticed, but the current Administration has a very militarist agenda. It involves invading other countries on suspicion. It's called the "Bush doctrine."

Now, I can hardly, and noone can, ignore a military belligerent U.S.A. that actually invades other countries. American liberals in general make a very weak opposition to Bush. You (collectively, and I assume you are a liberal) can't even point out personal flaws like Bush being a former alcoholic or taking a public stance against a war with Iran. You hardly ever say anything, you complain that someone else isn't saying it.

As a political opposition, you liberals suck. It's not just the elected ones. It endangers the whole rest of the world. Is that clear enough?

Posted by Bengt Larsson | October 24, 2007 4:48 PM

Not one thing has changed in GOP disinfo ops since Willie Horton
================================================

Now Al Gore started that one up

Posted by Campesino | October 24, 2007 5:00 PM

Now Al Gore started that one up

Please stop being wrong. Gore never mentioned Willie Horton.

Posted by Gabriel | October 24, 2007 5:12 PM

I understand that Democrats don't have the numbers to fight Republican filibusters. What I don't get is how the Democrats are so loath to use the power of their position to set the agenda of public discussion. They are always reacting instead of leading. And the one time someone does speak out, Pete Stark is an example, then the Democrats themselves knock him down and force an apology. Has any Republican apologized for any of their outrageous statements in the past six years? Pete Stark should not have apologized. If he had been censured his district would have greeted him as a hero. They'd throw him a parade. I don't understand why the Dems are so timid. Maybe all that secret phone tapping the government has been conducting the last six years has uncovered some dirt on the Dems that is being used to keep them in line?

Posted by JohnK | October 24, 2007 6:03 PM

Just how much is known about the staffs, advisers, etc of the various Democratic leaders? I'm asking because, every so often, Reid, Pelosi and others, actually sound like Democrats. Then something happens and BOOM!, they go back to being center-right, moderate Republicans (who aren't that bad, but they're definitely not Democrats).
I don't imagine the party leaders spend large amounts of time personally reading polls, letters and such; that stuff is most likely funneled to them through their "staffs". So the question then becomes, what are the qualifications of their staffers? Could it be that some staff members, fearful, say, for their own jobs if their employer isn't re-elected, are carefully sorting what is getting through and, most importantly, how it is phrased? I do recall all the problems that the DLC, in its search for "centrism" and "bipartisanship" has caused. Could such DLC-leaning staff members, if they exist, really be a problem?
This IS the Information Age. But someone has to sort through it and make sense of it (staff), so perhaps we should also look at them?
This is not an attempt to exonerate anyone, the leaders of the Democratic party should lead. But it would be interesting to know if they are getting the same information we are.

Posted by Doug | October 24, 2007 6:22 PM

Bengt Larsson,

Yet you also stick your nose in when the subject is entirely about domestic policy, for example our entitlements problems. Why does that interest you?

Posted by Steve | October 24, 2007 6:40 PM

Steve, you are tedious and arrogant. Americans are constantly commenting on and judging the domestic, internal affairs of other countries. I think it's helpful to get some international perspective on a lot of these issues and I appreciate Bengt's contribution. We tend to live in a political/ideological bubble vis-a-vis the rest of the world (probably a historical characteristic of hyper-powers).

Posted by Warren | October 24, 2007 7:52 PM

I think Krugman was right to clarify. Democratic weakness? The Democrats voted to end the war.

But need to pay attention the those Democrats who consistently vote with Bush on matters of national security, including Iraq. They are self described southern conservatives.

Put yourself in Pelosi's shoes. You think you could tell Gene Taylor from Mississippi how to vote? He would, perhaps politely, perhaps not, explain to you that he does not need you.

How about Allen Boyd of Florida? Wanna twist his arm? Get real.

Posted by little ole jim | October 24, 2007 8:18 PM

The intransigence of the GOP keeps the Dems from ending Iraq. Without at least a few GOP defections the Dems just don't have the votes.

49 GOP Senators + Joe Lieberman + Dick Cheney makes a Senate majority.

It is wrong to say that the Dems are in the majority on Iraq.

Posted by bakho | October 24, 2007 8:47 PM

What does the math have to do with it?

The Dems could have a 2/3 supermajority for ending the war, they could have 100% votes for ending the war, and they would still lose a confrontation with the President over funding the war if they remain unwilling to stand firm on refusing funding in the face of the President's game of budgetary chicken. They only needed the simple majority that they actually achieved to end the funding. In fact, the opponents of the war really only needed the majority of the majority it takes to control the leadership of either chamber, so as to refuse to let funding even come to a vote, in order to end the funding. The problem wasn't the lack of votes, since it would only have taken 25%+1 in either chamber. The problem is the lack of confidence in the majjority that Congress has the right and duty to insist on having the final say on ending the war. Without that firm conviction that the war power is a Congressional power, for which the power of the purse is a legitimate enforcement tool, they could have had 100% of both chambers behind ending the war, and they still would have backed down in the face of a fixed and firm Presidential will to continue the war.

Blaming the inaction of the Dem majority in Congress on the math only obscures the real point of interest in this matter. Why would the Congressional Dems have any doubt that, quite aside from possessing the mathematical requirements to end the war, they have every right to end the war, and the duty to do so if they think it is harmful to the national interest? The Constitution isn't remotely controversial or the least bit unclear on this point. The Democratic base can see this clearly enough, and they can read the polls that show such popular support for ending the war that they can't see why anyone would reasonably fear a political price to be paid for ending the war, and so are left blaming their leadership for a cowardly unwillingness to assert the prerogatives of their Congressional majority and end the war.

What people who don't follow politics closely , or don't remember the last time a war was controversial -- the end stages of Vietnam and the era of the War Powers Act -- is that we have long since abandoned the written Constitution for an unwritten version, at least in respect to war and foreign policy. Not that I regularly converse with any Congresscritters, but I suspect that an easy majority of even the Democratic among them hold with the unwritten constitution version, which probably all of the Republicans except perhaps Ron Paul subscribe to, of what Congress should and shouldn't be doing in respect to beginning and ending our wars. They sincerely believe that Congress would be overstepping its bounds if it went further than holding hearings and making speeches to move public opinion on the war, and then holding votes to officially register that changed public opinion. Normally, they would expect a President to fall in line behind the new consensus, if only grudgingly, if and when the Congress had changed public opinion. Bush would have at least made a show of following the ISG recommendations had he followed this script. But they really aren't prepared, have no further weapons in the arsenal their belief system provides them, to fight further a President who chooses to ignore public opinion. What the conventional wisdom prescribes in such a case is to wait for the next election, and use the other side's defiance of public opinion to win at the polls. The Congressional Dems believe that they have done all that they can and should do for now by creating and clarifying this public opinion change on the war, and are waiting for the 2008 elections to give the electorate its chance to punish their side by giving our side the Presidency, and with it, real power to change the war to reflect the change in public opinion.

There is indeed a sense in which the professional politico Democrats are lining up with the Republicans on the war. But it isn't a secret liking for the war, or that they have been bought by campaign contributors who like the war, or even that they are a bunch of feckless coward politicos. The politicos of both parties simply agree on the unwritten constitution that has made the President a sort of elected dictator, at least for war and foreign policy. The Republicans have no leadership/follower split on this issue because their followers really are goose-step level followers, and would like the idea of following a Fuehrer President even if their leaders didn't tell them to like it. But the Dems are cursed with a base made up of folks who don't do the blind obediance thing too well, and are so simple that they only know about how this country is run from what they read in the Constitution. And that tells them the war should be winding down by now, so there is a conflict of mutual incomprehension with the leadership.

The theory espoused by the party politicos, the unwritten constitution, would almost certainly prevail in this conflict, if we were indeed headed to a Dem Presidential win in 2008 that would render the dispute between the world views moot. The leadership would be proven right by the Presidential win, and the conflict would be forgotten by the party faithful. Unfortunately for our chances of living in non-interesting times, the other side is even more motivated than usual to not let us win this time, on account of the jail thing that would happen to so many of them if a Democrat takes custody of the evidence in January 2009. And the one means that seems left in their arsenal to win in 2008 is calculated to drive the Congressional Dems away from their complacent adherence to the unwritten constitution, and back to the written version. It seems fairly clear that their side intends to stage a war with Iran on a timeline that they think will help them win in 2008. While the initial response of the Congressional Dems to this has so far seemed to be pretty much the same as their response to the Iraq roll-out just prior to the 2002 elections, i.e., complete roll-over and beg master to whip them again, you have to hope that maybe the second kick of the mule, the second time that they are victimized, quite apart from the consequences to our troops and the people of Iran, by the transparently self-serving use of a war to win an election, they might feel some inclination to abandon their faith in an unwritten constitution that gives them the short end of the stick. The written Constitution, for all the horror of it actually making them responsible for running this country, does at least have this to recommend it to the Congressional majority, that it gives them the powers they need to do that. The whip really is in their hands, if they simply had the will to use it. You have to hope that they will finally be goaded into using it if this President makes it finally clear that the beatings of Congress will not stop until Congress itself stops them by fighting back.

Posted by Glen Tomkins | October 25, 2007 12:07 AM

I've said it a hundred times.

The Dems voted for the war because they BELIEVED in the war - NOT just believed that Saddam had "WMDs" - they BELIEVED IN THE WAR.

They STILL do.

They voted for the KL Resolution because they KNOW it will help Bush start another war.

They voted for sanctions on Iran because they KNOW it will help gin up another war.

Until you people get a clue and realize that the Dems are just one half of the "War Party", you are going to continue to be "amazed" at how "dumb" they are.

Just because they can't figure out how to get more PR than the Republicans doesn't mean they are "anti-war"

And just because they CLAIM to be "anti-war" doesn't mean they are.

If they seriously wanted to stop the war, they would stop it - votes or no votes. They would be out there in the press daily banging the drums for stopping the war. They would be putting pressure on the Republicans, they would be putting pressure on Lieberman, they would be filibustering Republican pork barrel bills, they would be doing SOMETHING.

They ain't doing shit.

Tells you all you need to know.

"No votes" is an excuse, not a reason.

Worried about 2008? Why should they be? "Dethroning incumbents"? How? They control the process. Nobody's going anywhere. They have ZERO incentive and ZERO threat to either their careers,or their paychecks.

You people are suckers. Period.

And while you wait for the 2008 elections to "win before that's doable", Bush has got a little spanner to throw in that works - it's called "Iran".

And I have YET to hear ONE DEMOCRAT talk about that.

Josh Bolton said, "The Dems will lose over Iran." (Actually he didn't say it, another Republican did - but that was one point of Bolton's "five-point recovery plan" when he was brought on as Chief of Staff.)

And NOT ONE DEMOCRAT has EVER addressed that.

Not one.

All they did was vote for the KL Resolution and Iran sanctions.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 25, 2007 12:33 AM

Paul Krugman for US Senate!

Posted by PSP | October 25, 2007 5:57 PM