Jim Clyburn is an 8-term Democrat from South Carolina’s 6th District, centered in Columbia. He’s also the Majority Whip, which was Tom DeLay’s old job before Gingrich got the boot. He’s a lot more low-key than The Hammer, so you might not be too familiar with him.
But Clyburn is familiar with the opinions of the Democratic Caucus and I don’t like what he’s saying.
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Monday that a strongly positive report on progress on Iraq by Army Gen. David Petraeus likely would split Democrats in the House and impede his party’s efforts to press for a timetable to end the war.
Clyburn, in an interview with the washingtonpost.com video program PostTalk, said Democrats might be wise to wait for the Petraeus report, scheduled to be delivered in September, before charting next steps in their year-long struggle with President Bush over the direction of U.S. strategy.
Clyburn noted that Petraeus carries significant weight among the 47 members of the Blue Dog caucus in the House, a group of moderate to conservative Democrats. Without their support, he said, Democratic leaders would find it virtually impossible to pass legislation setting a timetable for withdrawal.
“I think there would be enough support in that group to want to stay the course and if the Republicans were to stay united as they have been, then it would be a problem for us,” Clyburn said. “We, by and large, would be wise to wait on the report.”
Many Democrats have anticipated that, at best, Petraeus and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker would present a mixed analysis of the success of the current troop surge strategy, given continued violence in Baghdad. But of late there have been signs that the commander of U.S. forces might be preparing something more generally positive. Clyburn said that would be “a real big problem for us.”
I never like to criticize a politician for being honest, but Clyburn needs to work on his framing. Telling people that a good progress report from Iraq will be ‘a real big problem for us’ is not the best way of making the point. The point is that a positive progress report will not change the underlying hopelessness of our mission in Iraq, but it may be enough to splinter the Democratic Caucus. And, if that happens, the Dems’ problem will be with their own base. Again, I’ve got no problem with honesty. Clyburn is probably right.
And it doesn’t help that the Brookings Institute is already carrying water for an overly optimistic September report.
This fight is far from over. And Clyburn needs to work on his messaging.
