You gotta know when to fold 'em
"Bush and his war might be terribly unpopular, but under our system, he's still holding the high cards."
Jonathan Alter writes a good Newsweek piece reminding Democrats that thrashing Democratic leaders for their failed tactics in fighting with Bush and the GOP about war funding is understandable .. but calling for Democrat heads to roll because they didn’t stop the war is just plain silly.
He points out that Democrats lack the numbers in Congress to force a change in the course of the war.
Yeahbut .. that doesn’t mean all those Democrats had to vote "yes" .. at the very least they should have voted against it. Period.
Rather than do what Dems promised us they would do if we voted for them last year -- to get our troops out of the Iraq meat grinder -- they produced an Iraq-war funding bill that contains NO time line for withdrawal.
They handed BushCo a PR victory .. with which to demoralize us over this long weekend of memorials to those Soldiers and Marines we Democrats are supposed to protect.
From Newsweek: "The Case for Gamesmanship
The Democrats' internecine squabbling over the war is a family argument about tactics, not a showdown over principle. The left should remember that.
The Democrats' internecine squabbling over the war is a family argument about tactics, not a showdown over principle. The left should remember that.
May 24, 2007 - It isn't easy to make the case for capitulation and gamesmanship when human lives are at stake, but I'm going to try. That's because many Americans—especially on the left—don't understand why Democrats in Congress had no choice but to proceed the way they have this week on the war in Iraq.
....The first thing to understand is that Democrats may have won the midterms but they lack the votes to end the war in Iraq. Some liberals don't seem to get this elemental fact. A bill with a timetable for withdrawal was passed and sent to President Bush's desk. He vetoed it. Democrats didn't have anywhere near the votes to override the veto. Bush and his war might be terribly unpopular, but under our system, he's still holding the high cards.[..]"
