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That's New York City labor activist Michael Letwin speaking to a big pro-surrender rally. His beef is that "[t]his is a bipartisan war ... [and] [t]he Democratic party cannot be trusted to end it."
Heh. As I said back in January:
Just as the Vietnam war is now clearly disivisible into distinct phases, in due course of time, to talk of "the" war in Iraq will similarly be seen as a misnomer. It is already divisible into at least three distinct [and indepedent] phases ... [the third of which] began when the Democrats took back control of Congress. This war now proceeds at their suffrance and only at their suffrance, for while the President is the Commander-in-Chief of our military, ... "the President goes to war with the army that Congress gives him ... [And Democrats thus now have] the Constitutional power to force this conflict to a close. They may explicitly defund the operation, or may do so sub silentio by simply failing to appropriate the funds for its continuation. If they fail to do so, that is a concession that the reality is more complicated than they were ready to admit before campaigning on bringing the war to an end."
The bottom line for Congressional Democrats is that "Like it or not, this is there war, now, as much as it is Bush's. By seizing Congress, they have put themselves in the position of betraying their voters, or betraying the national interest. Checkmate - or at least, dolchstosslegende."
In the comments: Rachel cites this op/ed from Michael Totten, and I think it's worth post-level attention. The main thrust of Totten's argument seems to be that the best case for electing Kerry (this was written in fall '04) was that "Bush unhinges people. He just does. It isn't his fault that he's a lighting rod for the paranoid. But that doesn't change the fact that he is ... [and] [t]hat makes him a liability [in the war on terror]." That is, "the anti-war movement is more anti-Bush than it is anti-war," and so dumping Bush might make sense because it would make it possible to disaggregate the (then and presently) undifferentiated mass of anger, splitting it between those whose judgment has temporarily been overwhelmed by inchoate rage at the current President (and for whom there's hope that they'll snap out of it when he's gone), and those who really are nuts. Totten's hope is that there's more of the former than the latter, presumably.
There's a couple of other neat soundbits -- "[t]he Vietnam Syndrome appears to be not so much a mental affliction but a place where political parties out of power go to wallow during a crisis"; "most Democrats are not interested in using the United Nations to tie down their own country. They were only interested ... in using the UN to tie down George W. Bush. ... The urgent need to shunt the UN aside was obvious when Bill Clinton was president[,] [and] [i]t will be obvious once again when the UN tries to hamstring John Kerry" -- and it's well worth a read, even if it doesn't fully persuade on all points.
Related:
Obama's stop the war bill
Which Way Is It Going To Be, Mrs. Clinton?
Hoyer takes Defunding Off the Table
That's not micromanaging
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No, this is Bush's war (with
No, this is Bush's war (with a bunch of complicit Democrats I guess). Bush had total control to run the war, and this is how it turned out. To say the Democrats have to take the draconian (and politically suicidal) step of cutting off funding or this is "their war now" doesn't make much sense to me and seems like an attempt to absolve the guy who conducted the war of all responsibility.
Actually, Justin,
the conduct and execution of the war is squarely up to Bush, but it was Congress that gave him the authority, and it is Congress that has the power of the purse. I certainly don't want this war to end before the mission's done, but Bush isn't the only one who can the end the war. If the Dems really wanted to, they could cut funding tomorrow. Certainly, I'm not saying that they should, but they could.
In fact, all the polls say that they want Congress in control of this thing. To my fellow Dems, an exhortation: You cannot just wash your hands and lay this at Bush's feet.
"In the world you will find tribulation, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world."
John 16:33
Justin - click through for
Justin - click through for my discussion of culpability as it applies to the three phases of the war. Although Bush bears primary culpability, it is shared by the indispensable Congress, and thus Congress - both those run by Republicans and that now run by Democrats - shares the blame. The difference is that the GOP didn't ride to power promising to end the war. ;)
Lookit: Congressional democrats aren't stupid, they just play dumb on TV - they know what what happen, both to them and Iraq, if they pulled the plug. They knew before the election that it was just politics. They never had any serious intention of actual bravery. But this is what they get for cynically playing the anti-war movement. Those folks thought they'd bought a friend, and now they're figuring out that they've been duped. The dems have the power to end the war, and if they won't use it, that makes the war bipartisan.
at this point, JFK was
at this point, JFK was right: victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan. I'm personally sick of the Bush bashing and blaming because it has become a perverse panacea for a solution over a tough war (like Korea and Vietnam); a solution no one wants because they do not want to be tarred and lose their political bennies.
And personally, this war has ALWAYS been bipartisan. Democrats and Republicans voted for it, Dems and Reps should solve it and stop whining. Geez, they're making my youngest niece seem politically more intellegent - and she's six.
The best op-ed over Iraq was written by Michael J. Totten in 2004 called "Hawks and the Presidency". Everything he wrote back then seems to be accurate now.
Rachel
Justin - click through for
Justin - click through for my discussion of culpability as it applies to the three phases of the war. Although Bush bears primary culpability, it is shared by the indispensable Congress, and thus Congress - both those run by Republicans and that now run by Democrats - shares the blame. The difference is that the GOP didn't ride to power promising to end the war. ;)
I tend to agree with you (except for the last sentence). The Democrats did not, in fact, ride to power promising to end the Iraq war. Democrats received a lot of votes on account of the perception that the Administration has handled the war terribly and that it was a mistake (along with the Foley dust-up, Katrina, general perceptions of corruption etc.).
The mistake you are making is in creating an equivalence of options between the anti-war Dems and the Administration. The Administration literally has an infinite number of options for the conduct of the war; the Democrats have one, cut off funding, which will presumably cause a quick withdraw (maybe two--cutting off future funding-as you point in out in your Blogginheads comment). You can both beleive that we should pull out of Iraq and believe that cutting off funding is a strategically bad way to do it (for the US nat'l interest).
And, please, "betray the voters or betray the national interest". This is an example of trying to narrow the acceptable area of debate. To say that staying in Iraq is in our national interest as if it is a given is a little disingenuous.
And yes, cutting off funding is politically suicidal, especially in a climate where politicians will use any opportunity to demagogue the heck out of the war--you can already see the "we lost the war b/c of the anti-war crowd" arguments being tested by the right.
The Democrats need to give up on Iraq, as there really is nothing they can realistically do. Instead, they should concentrate on stopping the Administration from doing something stupin in Iran. If the Democrats do not stand up to Bush on this, I will never vote for a Democrat again.
I do, agree, however, that Democrats have generally been political cowards. I hope that changes soon.
The Democrats did not, in
At a minimum, they rode to power strongly implying that they were going to end the war, and my recollection is that they said so explicitly. For practical purposes, it isn't really necessary to establish which, though, because the anti-war left clearly believes (rightly or wrongly as a matter of historical fact) that the dems rode to power promising to end the war, and are showing a willingness to hold the dems to that standard.
Refusing to do something politically unpopular is always a sure sign of principle. ;) By refusing to take action against the war, they are conceding that the war is not actually all that big a problem. It's something they're concerned about, it's something they disagree with the President on, but atbottom, it just isn't an important enough issue for them to pull the trigger, do what's in their power to force the President to accede to their wises, and hope the country sees it their way. Compare, for example, the way that Gingrich handled a budget dispute with Clinton.
They already have done exactly that, aside from a fairly thin rhetorical smokescreen to disguise that withdrawal. But no-one's fooled by the smokescreen, everyone sees what's really going on, and that's why this Letwin guy is calling it a "bipartisan war," and it's why Code Pink is camped on Nancy Pelosi's front lawn.
I think it's your
I think it's your characertization of these people you're calling the "anti-war left" that I'm having a problem with. Yes, these people exist, and yes, nothing short of immediate withdraw would please them. But, the Democrats didn't win b/c of the votes of the anti-war left, and, in fact, the left has been marginalized in the Democratic party since Clinton. The people who are anti-war now aren't just on the left, but on the center and the right, and their assessment of what the Democrats can do is more nuanced than you are making it out to be. Most of the country can be described as "anti-war", but I would guess only a small minority would be in favor of cutting of funding.
By refusing to take action against the war, they are conceding that the war is not actually all that big a problem. It's something they're concerned about, it's something they disagree with the President on, but atbottom, it just isn't an important enough issue for them to pull the trigger, do what's in their power to force the President to accede to their wises, and hope the country sees it their way. Compare, for example, the way that Gingrich handled a budget dispute with Clinton.
As I said before, you can believe that the war should end, but that cutting off funding for the war is a bad way to do it. The Democrats simply do not have the power to change the course in Iraq in a nuanced way.
The Administration has put this country into a terrible strategic position--staying in Iraq won't help, and pulling out won't help, and to say the Democratic Congress is complicit in the war because they won't take the draconian step of cutting off funding doesn't convince me.
That's all I have to say--I've been procratinating doing work long enough (heck of a way to spend a Sunday afternoon!)
The Totten article was a
The Totten article was a good read. [Sorry, off topic comment about the Totten article] a couple of comments though-- a lot of people have bandied about the BDS charge for critics of Bush, which implies that a strong dislike to the Admnistration is somehow not rational. While I'll concede that there are plenty of people who will criticize Bush if he had a hotdog for lunch instead of a hamburger, much of the extreme dislike for Bush is grounded in reality--ie, you can disagree with an anti-Bushite about Bush, but that anti-Bush person's opinion didn't just come out of thin air. I voted for Gore in 2000, but barely. The only reason I bothered to vote for him was the because of the types of judges each candidate would appoint. Bush didn't strike me as the smartest buy ever, but I didn't really have any strong dislike for him--unlike now, where I think that he is one of the worst Presidents ever (OK, I'm not a Pres. historian, so that statement is based on a decent amount of ignorance about really bad Presidents).
Also, I would disagree with Totten's characertization of how the left would behave if Bill or HR Clinton were President and started this war. People forget that lefty types really didn't like Bill and the DLC and are now very wary of Hillary. Before Iraq, the lefty cause of the day was globalization--the march in street ANSWER types thought that Clinton had sold us out to global corporations or whatever (also, don't forget that Michael Moore supported Nader, not Gore in 2000). And, If I'm remembering correctly, the Nation strongly criticized Clinton over the Balkans (except for Hitchens, I think).
I'm not a stickler for
I'm not a stickler for on-topic, and I made sure it was on topic by adding it as an update. ;) The context of the article seems important - it's written as one half of a devil's advocate argument, and was accompanied by a case for Bush. So it does have a quality of "making the best of it that he can." I think the BDS point is that there are people who take their dislike of Bush to pathological levels, and I think Totten's point is that when Bush is no longer President, a lot of people who are now putatively anti-war will at least fade into the background, because they're animated more by hatred of Bush than any actual desire to unlaterally surrender in the GWOT. Now, of course, there are those who really do want to do that - Chomsky et al - but their numbers are artificially inflated as long as Bush is in charge.
I was hoping it was on
I was hoping it was on target, considering that it was about presidencies, perception, and the war on Iraq. Also in Totten's "defense" this article was written in September of 2004, fresh after only Falluhjah and Abu Gharib. Totten reports mainly on Lebanon (though he is in Iraq now) and I do not know his viewpoints about W and the war in Iraq today. I do not wish to speak for him, I just think it was a great essay that resonates with me today.
I don't think W. is one of the worst presidents ever. most likely because no one is giving me confidence that they can do a better job, even Guiliani. makes me wonder if anyone else is in charge would they do even better. The Arabian nations were always hostile regardless of carrot or sticks
Rachel
He's not the worst ever, and
He's not the worst ever, and history will probably be kinder than his contemporaries, but he's never going to be in the top rank. Two things I'd suggest about whether anyone else can do a better job, assuming (arguendo) that no one else could do a better job by any objective measure - the first is that even if Bush is doing as good a job as is possible in running the war (which really, honestly is a dubious proposition at best), he's done an awful job communicating with the electorate, and that's important. Second, the President doesn't just run the war, and Bush has made some foreign and domestic policy choices -- mistakes, to put it bluntly -- that I have a great deal of confidence that others would not have made.