Let’s assume the whole Iraq funding fight for Congress was just “political foreplay,” as a “Democratic leadership source” told CNN on Tuesday (emphasis added throughout):
A senior Democratic senator said late last week the last-minute attempts by Democrats to get a withdrawal timeline was “political foreplay.”
A Democratic leadership source told CNN some two months ago that Democratic leaders knew they would have to send the president a war funding bill without a timeline, and that would likely mean a bill with significant Democratic defections and GOP support.
The maneuvering over the past several weeks has been a Democratic attempt to show their anti-war base that party leaders were trying until the 11th hour to stand up to the president, the source said.
Okay, that’s bad enough, but my question for blogland is, “Was Dailykos in on the political foreplay?” Because it’s pretty damn disturbing that Dailykos was virtually mum on the cave in from May 15 to 21 while it was being put together.
Yes, in case many of you didn’t know, Progressive Democrats of America found out about the deal on May 15 and shouted about it:
ACT NOW: CONTACT THE SENATE OVER IRAQ
May 15, 2007, Washington, DC
Your Senators will vote today on a plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. They will vote next week on the $95 billion war funding bill. …
Next week, the Senate will vote on a new version of the supplemental war funding bill. We don’t know the details yet, but it looks like the Senate will give the President $95 billion for the war without any fixed timeline for the withdrawal of our troops. Call your Senator today, and next week to tell them to vote against the supplemental war funding bill, which amounts to a blank check for Bush/Cheney!
Me, my little pip squeak voice (since I’ve been banned from dailykos (no reason, or check my diaries and comments and you tell me) it’s even pipsqueakier), I was shouting as loud as I could about the PDA revelations (look at my diaries here, here, and here) but I was ignored of course. Obviously such would not have been the case if front pagers at kos had blogged repeatedly about this betrayal before it came down. Why didn’t they?
So yeah, we’ve seen the whining outpour on May 21 and after by illustrious dailykossacks Meteor Blades, mcjoan, and devilstower, but what were they doing when it mattered? What were they doing — from the time a reliable ‘deal’ rumor came down and up till the betrayal was finally hammered out — to sway the powers that be by warning and rallying antiwarriors everywhere, speaking from the big megaphone dailykos site? A grand total of one post, by mcjoan, late Friday, May 18.
Time Out for reassuring words from Greg Sargent, by way of mcjoan on May 18:
… the Dem leadership insists it’s committed to not giving Bush a blank check, and it has consistently hung much tougher than anyone expected and has steadily defied expectations in the process.
Meteor Blades and Devilstower wrote nothing May 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21 on the unconditional funding sell out. Mcjoan wrote nothing about impending Iraq capitulation on May 15, 16, 17, 19, and 20. Why not? Those three are supposed to be big time ‘liberal’ members of the dailykos frontpage. Don’t tell me they probably weren’t aware (not the ‘stupid and incompetent’ excuse again), or that such a deal — in flux and still influence-able by us outsiders — wasn’t important. No, just tell me they were being good, cautious insider boys and girls. That rings most true, based on my experience there.
