(cross-posted at Daily Kos)
I have been one of the more ardent supporters of the new congressional Democratic majority since they took office in early January. In my opinion, their first week on the job was quite successful, particularly in how unified the caucus was. And when there was criticism at Daily Kos of the week-old Democratic majority about their lack of action on Iraq after 10 days on the job, I defended our congressional leadership, noting that they had already accomplished a great deal and were beginning to talk up various plans for how to put an end to our involvement in Iraq.
It’s been 2 months to the day that Democrats were inaugurated into the majority. At this point, the embarrassing lack of leadership from congressional Democrats needs to stop now. The more they fiddle while Baghdad burns, the more the Iraqi conflicts becomes our war – just as much as it has been George Bush’s war.
The first sign of ineptitude came in the Senate on the initial nonbinding resolutions: the first one was derailed 49-47 in a cloture vote. The second one garnered more support, but cloture once again was not attained by a 56-34 margin. Think about the absurdity of these resolutions to begin with. We failed to get enough votes to ‘begin’ to have debate a nonbinding resolution. What exactly is that going to accomplish? The media was playing it up to be an historic rebuke, but how historic can it be? Such a measure will end up in the tiny footnotes of history, not something looked upon as precedent-setting or meaningful.
What the initial escapade showed was that congressional Democrats, particularly in the Senate, didn’t have a damn clue what they were trying to accomplish. After Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and Joe Biden (D-DE) introduced their nonbinding resolution with Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE), they were promptly co-opted by a measure introduced by Senators John Warner (R-VA), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Ben Nelson (D-NE). Many in the blogosphere have praised Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for being a master strategist, but in his short time as majority leader, it appears that he was far better at keeping a threatened minority united than in shepherding a majority forward – and this failure to pass the weakest of statements on the situation of Iraq was the first proof of this.
What’s worse, in my eyes, is the grandstanding that has been done by the presidential candidates. Each of them have their own ideas about what should be done. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) introduced the Iraq War De-escalation Act of 2007 with Reps. Mike Thompson (D-CA) and Patrick Murphy (D-PA). Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) has offered the Iraq Troop Reduction & Protection Act of 2007. Biden continues to stand by his plan to partition Iraq into three ethnics states. Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) has his own bill to cap troop levels. In particular, Obama and Clinton both offer specific dates by which to draw down troops. The intellectually dishonest part of offering their own separate bills is that it’s extremely likely that because of Democratic disunity on how to deal with Iraq, none of their bills will ever see the light of day in either the House or the Senate. Instead, these bills seem like nothing more than an attempt to win political points with primary voters. Let’s take Obama’s bill, for example. What sense does it make to have the centerpiece of his Iraq policy for his presidential campaign be withdrawal by March 2008 – when the election he is attempting to be the Democratic nominee for is not until November of the same year? In short, the only way Obama’s bill – or any of the other bills – has a chance of passing by the dates the candidates claim to support withdrawal by is if they take action in Congress now, irregardless of their presidential aspirations. It particularly pains me to say this of Obama, as I support him for president and because I volunteered a good deal of my time in the fall for Representative Murphy, his co-sponsor on the bill. If the Democratic presidential candidates are serious about ending the war on Iraq, why don’t they band together and offer a joint policy that incorporates the best aspects of each of their plans? That would be audacious. That would show leadership. That would show the ability to compromise in a constructive fashion, a fashion that has been absent from Washington under the current administration. And it would certainly be better than the complete lack of leadership either Reid or Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) have shown on Iraq.
I don’t mean to say that there has been no leadership from congressional Democrats on Iraq. The problem is that the leaders in Congress don’t particularly seem eager to even address ways by which we can begin to bring our troops home. Representative John Murtha, an ardent critic of the war in Iraq, presented his own plan to bring the troops home. Here’s an overview:
A more sophisticated way of avoiding blame has recently been hit upon by Rep. John Murtha, who originally favored Pelosi’s “redeployment” strategy. Murtha has now introduced legislation that would deny funding for further forces in Iraq unless they are “fully” equipped, have not served in Iraq on previous tours and meet other stringent conditions, the net effect of which would be to prevent any reinforcements at all. This would effectively compel the withdrawal, fairly soon, of the troops we already have there.
Considering how poorly our troops have been armed, this would be a politically savvy method to cut off funding for the conflict, forcing the troops to come home. Even as a standalone measure, it’s something that should be considered. However, other congressional Democrats felt compelled to decry Murtha, despite the fact that he probably has more authority in Congress (other than Murphy, who fought in the conflict himself) to speak on the matter than anyone else. The source of discontent on our side, as usual, comes from out-of-touch conservative Democrats:
A lawmaker who attended a meeting of Blue Dogs Tuesday said half of the conservative Democrats who were there raised concerns about language that Defense Appropriations subcommittee Chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) said he would include in the supplemental.
[…]
“I don’t think we should be interfering with military strategy,” said Rep. John Tanner (D-Tenn.), a leading Blue Dog, when asked about Murtha’s proposed restrictions.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) has said he may add waivers to the military bill that would allow the Department of Defense to circumvent Murtha’s proposed restrictions, according to press reports.
In the Senate, aside from the various propositions put up by presidential contenders, Levin is now proposing a new resolution that would be binding…even though the language is open to much interpretation and would not do much of anything to change our current predicament:
The move would not repeal the Senate’s 2002 vote authorizing the war, but instead limit the mission of U.S. troops to focus on counter-terrorism efforts such as protecting Iraq’s borders, said Sen. Carl Levin, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“It will not be combat in the middle of Baghdad. It will be a transition to a more limited mission of supporting the Baghdad army training and logistics,” the Michigan Democrat told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
According to Reid, we should be hearing about Iraq in the Senate soon. What plan he and other Senate Democrats will come out with, though, seems to be quite the mystery. The House doesn’t seem much better, as Democratic leadership is now backing away from Murtha’s plan. Additionally, it seems like our Majority Leader in the lower chamber is stepping back to assess the political consequences of any action taken:
“We are in the process of choosing the least dangerous, the least negative alternative,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. “We’re not there; there’s not a consensus.”
If the Democrats want to act like a bunch of stick-the-finger-in-the-wind pollwatchers, they’re sure doing a bad job of doing it. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 53% of Americans want a defined deadline to bring the troops home in a year or sooner. If one looks at the general numbers when it comes to Iraq, it is clear that Bush and the Republicans are not trusted to get us out of Iraq.
In short, Democrats have got to stop trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. If we campaigned to change the course of the country – especially our involvement in Iraq – we have to deliver. It took the country 6 years, but they finally woke up to the fact that the Republican claims that electing Democrats would embolden the enemy was complete bunk. They’ll turn on us just as quickly if we don’t stop our involvement in Iraq as soon as possible. We can no longer claim we don’t have the power to stop this war. We do. And trying to use the war for political gain each day that there is inaction will reek more and more of hypocrisy.
My message to congressional Democrats is this: stop fiddling around while more of our money goes to waste. Stop fiddling around with resolutions that you know will accomplish absolutely nothing. Stop fiddling around while the number of American casualties continues to increase.
Get us out of Iraq now.