How the Defeatest Dems surrendered on Iraq

Rolling Stone has another interesting political piece on 'The Chicken Doves.'

It explores how the Democrats rode to control of Congress on a wave of anti-war support. And how they proceded to betray the anti-war movement by not doing anything about... the war.

This turn of events shouldn't have surprised anyone. Readers of this blog know that during the 2006 campaign, I warned that Democrats were more interested in APPEARING anti-war than actually DOING SOMETHING anti-war. I saw this locally, with fake anti-war Congressional candidate Kirsten Gillibrand. And I saw it nationally with fake anti-war Democratic 'leaders' Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

And so it has proven to be the case in power.

The RS piece examines how the Democrats take non-stop verbal shots at evil President Bush but when push comes to shove, they don't actually do anything to stop him, or even slow him down.

Now, there probably are some Democrats in Congress who really want to do (as opposed to just say) the right thing.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a fellow caucus member, says Democrats should have refused from the beginning to approve any funding that wasn't tied to a withdrawal. "If we'd been bold the minute we got control of the House — and that's why we got the majority, because the people of this country wanted us out of Iraq — if we'd been bold, even if we lost the votes, we would have gained our voice."

The Democrats came to power with a mandate to at least draw down our participation in Iraq's civil war. But while President Bush was more than willing to use every last ounce of his non-mandate in the first term, Democrats refused to use their real mandate.

The Democrats' so-called leaders love nitpick at Bush's prosecution of the war, but they've always found excuses not to truly challenge him on it.

I'm not sure if the 'leaders' of the Democratic Party really want the war to end. If it did, they would lose it as a fake issue. Just like I doubt Republican leaders really abortion to become illegal, for the same reasons. How can you tell?

Republicans never criminalized abortion when they controlled Congress. And Democrats de-funded the war now that they control Congress. Talk is cheap. Actions speak louder than words.

The end of the war would mean the Dems lose a way to blackmail left-of-center voters into voting for the lesser of two evils. They would lose a major way of smearing people who vote for Nader or for other smaller party candidates; the 'a vote for a smaller party candidate is a vote for the Republicans' bald faced lie is more effective when the Republicans are running a war.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe deep in what passes for their hearts, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and their minions really do want the war to end. But they might be surprised to learn that the catastrophe is not just going to magically stop. The only way it's going to stop is if people make it stop. The only way it's going to stop is if people stand up to Bush.

Pelosi and Reid can make it stop not by wishing, not by hoping and certainly not by cowering. They can make it stop only by taking action. And Pelosi and Reid and their delegations have far more power to actually make it happen. Does God decree that hundreds of billions of American tax dollars be wasted on this human disaster? No. It's the Congress that does that. And it's the Congress can stop it.

Anti-war folks have been repeatedly betrayed by the Democratic Party. Yet many keep sticking with the party despite these betrayals. I don't want to offend anyone but in many ways, it reminds me of the battered spouse dynamic.

John Kerry was the quintessential example of this. A party whose rank-and-file was overwhelmingly anti-war nominated a man whose platform was essentially, "The war was a superfantastically awesome idea, just badly run."

And anti-war Democrats all rallied behind the pro-war Kerry in the hope of... ending the war. They raged against any anti-war person who wanted to vote for a candidate who was actually... anti-war.

In 2006, it was very similar. The Democratic line wasn't "The war is a bad idea. We're going to end it." Their line was, "We're too chicken to take a strong position on the principle, so we'll bitch and moan about the details."

In 2008, one of the Democrats remaining is taking a position almost identical to Kerry while the other isn't talking about it much at all. Taking a strong position, we're told, would hurt the Democrats' chances.

It's about time that anti-war voters tell the Democrats that their chances will be more hurt by continuing to be cowards on this hugely important issue.

It reminds me a lot of gay rights. Democrats want to be associated with pro-gay rights without actually taking actions that advance the cause of gay rights. Most gays are content with the Democrats being pro-gay rights in theory, but not in action. Yet if you look at the other side of the coin, most gay bashers insist that their politicians (mostly Republican) take bigoted ACTIONS, cast bigoted votes, push bigoted referenda.

Many gays continue to give their blind support to action-less Democrats not so much out of hope but out of fear. And many anti-war folks do the exact same thing.

The difference between voting Democrat and voting Republican is the difference between the country going downhill at 50 mph and it going downhill at 75 mph. The ONLY way to change the fundamental direction of the country is to vote for and get involved with a smaller party, such as the Greens. Only when the Democrats realize that inaction has consequences will there be even the most microscopic hope of the party reforming itself. And since most ordinary voters can't give millions in campaign bribes, the only way they can punish the Dems is to refuse to hand them their vote.

The Democrats have proven that they are either unwilling or unable to end our participation in Iraq's civil war, despite its irrelevance to American national security and despite their own control the purse strings. Even if they haven't completely ended our participation in Iraq's civil war, how much closer are we to that objective since they took power in Congress? Not one step.

Sure, there's a little more oversight. There are hearings about things that have embarassed the president and his cronies. But in the end, that's the only thing the Demcorats are concerned about: embarassing the president and his cronies. Because when it comes to bringing to an end our participation in Iraq's civil war, having the Democrats in power hasn't made one iota of difference whatsoever.

We complain a lot about politicians. We complain about unrepresentative politics. But if voters don't have the guts to do the right thing and act on their conscience, why should their politicians be any different? Maybe the problem is that our system is too representative. Maybe Jefferson was right: we do tend to get the kind politicians we deserve. If we want politicians who take action, we need to do the same.

Update: Noam Chomsky has his own thoughts on why withdrawing from Iraq's civil war is a non-issue in the Democratic race. Chomsky is not my favorite writer, but this piece is very much worth a read.