Iraq

Oh just fucking stop it already. This isn't how you won the Democratic nomination.

The Senator tells reporters in North Dakota he plans a “a thorough assessment” of his Iraq policy during his coming visit to the country.

“When I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I’m sure I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies.”

Adds: “My 16-month (withdrawal) timeline, if you examine everything that I’ve said, was always premised on making sure that our troops were safe.”

I may never write this again, but the RNC's assessment of Obama's actions the last few weeks is right.

“There appears to be no issue that Barack Obama is not willing to reverse himself on for the sake of political expedience.”

When the RNC is right about our nominee, our nominee isn't leading. Obama has run on the fact that he rightly opposed the Iraq war from the start. Since then, he has accumulated greater and greater responsibility for his actions. As President he will bear the ultimate responsibility for America's policy in Iraq and thus the continuation or termination of the war. Good God, man - an increase of responsibility does not obligate you to become more wrong Barack!

Get it right.

People expect you to end the war. If you win, it's on your shoulders. Don't chicken out now, because you will seal your fate, LBJ-style, to have a brutal, unpopular war define your presidency.

Incredible asshole Steny Hoyer, is twisting arms for yeas on a bill that trades $11 billion in domestic spending pet projects, in exchange for continued funding of the war... of course, with no timelines, of course with no oversight, of course with not a single briefing from the Pentagon to Congress. This bill makes it flat-out look like the Democrats have stopped caring.

House Democratic leaders could complete work as soon as Monday on a half-trillion-dollar spending package that will include billions of dollars for the war effort in Iraq without the timelines for the withdrawal of combat forces that President Bush has refused to accept, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said yesterday. [...]


Democratic leadership aides expressed confidence that Boehner and Blunt will not be able to keep enough Republicans away from a bill that funds the war, popular domestic programs and their own pet projects, known as earmarks. With a long holiday break beckoning, few lawmakers will be in the mood for a protracted standoff. [...]
Hoyer struck a pragmatic tone, pushing for Congress to adjourn for the year by the end of next week. He suggested that Democrats need to divorce their goal of ending the war from the battle over funding.

The sliver of good news is that a few members are quite peeved at Hoyer and Reid and might start squealing to the press their displeasure as early as the middle of next week.

Hoyer is an insufferable prick, my friends who work for him and those of us who have to work with him, perhaps only avoid Rham Emmanuel and Tony Weiner more.

One of the challenges of writing a blog in general is having enough things to say on a daily basis to keep people interested. One of the challenges of writing a blog about progressive Leadership is that there is such an absolute vacuum in Washington of it, that one struggles to find anything inspirational at all. So sometimes you have to leave Washington and look elsewhere, for what Atrios calls "More and Better Democrats."

I have found one of those Democrats, and his name is Jared Polis. He's apparently insane enough to run for congress as a progressive in the conservative state of Colorado (though in the apparent hippy mecca of Boulder.) While most candidates espouse vague rhetoric of change and hope and blah blah blah, he's actually putting his money where his mouth is. He's going to fucking Iraq to see how it looks on the ground. My guess is he'll be the only candidate in the country to do so.

Hopefully, he'll get access to more than just the green zone and see what's really going on over there. He's a far braver man than I, regardless. Good luck, sir.

My colleague Thomas Paine gave notice to Harry Reid that his abysmal "leadership" of the Senate is frittering away whatever was left of the goodwill America felt toward the Democratic Party in Congress.

But apparently, the capitulation talk wasn't coming from Reid. It was coming from Inouye and Levin:

Two of the most powerful voices on Defense in the Senate — Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, and Daniel K. Inouye, a Democrat representing Hawaii who is chairman of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee — both said Democrats would offer a less restrictive version of the their party’s bill in December.

“There’s going to be a modification of the bridge fund,” Levin said.

The war spending bill is often referred to as a “bridge fund” because it is only a down payment on the $200 billion Bush requested.

Levin said that Republican criticism has focused on the inclusion of specific dates in any bill - and so, as a goddamn mole for the minority Republicans, Levin will dutifully produce for the GOP a 'change of mission' bill that doesn’t include specific dates.

What is your job Carl?! Who do you serve?!

America REALLY wishes that instead of representing a shrinking clique of insane Bush-loyalist Republican dead enders, that you would instead Represent Michigan and produce a bill that is for ALL Americans.

“These are possibilities, I’m not predicting outcomes,” Levin cautioned.

I am predicting outcomes: You're a coward - and you'll do what you've always done, you'll give your lunch money to the bully.

Inouye added, “We’ve got to build another bridge.”

No, Dan, we need to build a raft and set your ass adrift -- by which I mean a primary candidate to step up and fire you.

Remember how I mentioned earlier that it was too soon to put Harry Reid in the Lead or the Get Out of The Way category? How he had some strong rhetoric that lead me to believe that he might do something brave?

Well, now he's just IN THE WAY. Harry Reid, grow a pair.

Nancy, the ball is in your court. I wait in mediocre anticipation of your utter and complete capitulation. Please, for the love of God, prove me wrong.

You'll notice at the top of the site, we have tag clouds for "leading" and for being "in the way." The name of the leader gets bigger with each action they take on way or anther. To earn a spot in the Lead category you have to really mean it. How do I decide who really means it? Basically, it's based on past behavior combined with the current rhetoric and how shocking and leaderly it looks to be. That's right, leaderly. I learned that from Monsieur Colbert. Anyways, the reason I bring this up is that the Democratic leadership, which has managed to choke every single time they have been called to lead sounds like they are ready to step up finally, and be, well, "leaderly."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday that Democrats won't approve more money for the Iraq war this year unless President Bush agrees to begin bringing troops home.

By the end of the week, the House and Senate planned to vote on a $50 billion measure for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill would require Bush to initiate troop withdrawals immediately with the goal of ending combat by December 2008.

If Bush vetoes the bill, "then the president won't get his $50 billion," Reid, D-Nev., told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., made a similar statement last week in a closed-door caucus meeting.

I haven't added Reid and Pelosi to the leader board, just yet. Since they have a history of choking under pressure, I'm gonna wait till I see their actual actions and see if said actions speak louder than their words. Here's hoping.

The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy has been leading on the issue of Torture by forcing our leaders to take a stand on the nomination of Michael Mukasey as Attorney General. Under the cover of night, weak weak Harry Reid made a deal with the devils allowing a late night vote in favor of Mukasey after all the hard work of the presidential candidates and the grassroots to stop the nomination of a man who won't say whether waterboarding is torture.

Just an FYI for anyone who is a complete fool... Waterboarding is torture.

When we do it, that gives foreign entities permission to do it to our men and women in uniform. I for one, am against giving permission to torture American soldiers. But then again, I'm not a Republican.

Anyways, like I said, Harry Reid made this deal under the cover of night because:

According to sources inside and outside the Democratic leadership, Harry Reid allowed a vote on Mukasey because in exchange the Republican leadership agreed to allow a vote on the big Defense Appropriations Bill, which contains $459 billion in military spending but doesn't fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Reid had wanted to get this bill passed before the end of this week, and in fact, the defense bill did come up for a vote late last night and was passed after the Mukasey vote.

One key reason Dem leaders wanted this defense approps bill passed, sources tell me, is that they wanted to be able to argue that they had sent a bill to the President funding the military, if not the war itself. The idea was that doing this would allow them to protect themselves in the days ahead when the battle over Iraq funding heats up and Republicans inevitably charge that Dems are refusing to fund the troops.

I just want to point out that this unbelievably weak justification is going to get you absolutely nowhere. The Republican attack machine is not an organization that gives you a day off simply because you spent money on the military. I liken them to a Shark with Coprophagia. It tears you to shreds, eating you alive, poops you out, then having convinced itself of the fantastic truth of its own bullshit, consumes it again to be shat out later.

I want you to imagine which of the following things is going to happen when that Iraq funding bill comes up.

1. The Republicans demand passage of the defense bill on Iraq and say Democrats hate the troops because they won't vote for the bill. Democrats respond that they passed the previous spending bill to take care of the troops, at which point the Republicans say, "Oh yea, our bad." OR
2. The Republicans demand passage of the defense bill on Iraq and say Democrats hate the troops because they won't vote for the bill. Democrats respond that they passed the previous spending bill to take care of the troops, at which point the Republicans say, "Democrats hate the troops, they want to abandon them in Iraq to die, without enough money for their plane ride home."

Never, EVER, surrender any compromise with the current GOP. They never will comprimise in any meaningful way. No quarter, no mercy.

More and better Democrats please.