Congress has had almost a month at home among their constituents to mull over the war in Iraq and their own political futures. Jason Altmire (PA-04) is a freshman Democrat from a district where Bush took 55% of the vote in 2004. He says:
“I have seen a little more talk about the surge working. I don’t know if it’s happening across the country,” he said. But he added that people still seemed “3- or 4-to-1 against it.”
Even in this solidly red district, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of the people that Altmire talks to are against the surge. And he’s not the only one feeling it.
“The war is clearly the No. 1 issue on people’s minds. It comes up wherever I go,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is up for reelection next year. “In general, I have found that people are eager to see our troops start coming home. But they recognize the dire consequences of an abrupt withdrawal.”
Yet, there are few chinks in the Republicans’ armor from their time at home. It’s true that Sen. John Warner has returned from Iraq with a recommendation that we begin withdrawal by Christmas (even if it is only 5,000 troops). There have been almost no other defections. All the movement has been on our side.
…Rep. Brian Baird, a low-key Democrat from Washington State who has spent a career toiling away on local issues, suddenly came out in support of President Bush’s troop surge in Iraq…
Baird, who had just returned from a trip to Iraq, now opposes any timetable for troop withdrawal.
Those statements effectively hooked a boulder to the Democrats’ gathering momentum for a swift troop pull-out. And Baird wasn’t the only one. Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.) came back from Iraq and told his local newspaper that the surge “has really made a difference and really has gotten al Qaeda on their heels.”
I’d rather play activist than pundit, but I don’t like the way the momentum is shaping up for our showdown in September. Our entire strategy is predicated on peeling vulnerable or principled Republicans away from the President. And it looks like the opposite is the more prevalent circumstance at the moment.
Like I said on my post, we’ve got to be single minded. What if you, digby, Atrios and a few other sites went “all war all the time” in the run-up to the vote and subsequent policy making? Nothing on the AG, corruption in Alaska, mines in Utah, bridges in Minnesota, etc. Every post, every day – Iraq. And speaking of playing activist and not pundit: Tell us who you’ve contacted and how. Have others send in who THEY have contacted and how. Exhort people all the time. “This morning – tell us who you contacted.” “This afternoon – tell us who you contacted.” And so on. Constantly, unrelentingly and absolutely to the exclusion of everything else. It worked when the right did it on immigration.
well…can you tell me what the votes are going to be? What are the amendments? Who is taking the lead?
Because we’re in dark.
I can’t tell you any of that. If the past is any guide they’ll cobble it together in a smoke-filled room, announce it at 5:30 PM on a Friday and hold the vote at midnight. We have to get in front of it this time – if the message is as simple as “We want a schedule for a gradual and complete troop withdrawal” the details will follow.
position, it’s the Dem(arrgh)Rats.
Watch.
AG
It looks that way…
These guys have been suckered by a dog and pony show once again.
We’ll be lucky if the September report is any more than a speed bump in Bush’s race to all out conflict in the Middle East. We’ll blow by it with little more than a cursory glance.
“Full speed ahead to Armageddon!!!” That’s their mantra.
that these folks even heard from their constituents. I called twice to see if Salazar had any public venues over the break and neither time did they have any. Sneak.
Big Salazar or little Salazar?
Kenny.
mark udall pulled the same scam…..no public mtgs, anywhere, that l’m aware of.
and this guy’s the “anointed” candidate for allard’s vacant seat.
lTMF’sA
I have said for a long time we should take the Free South Africa movement as a role model. We need to organize some direct action against the stink tanks and special interests who are pressing for this war.
Booman, the Democrats don’t want to get out of Iraq. More and more people are coming to that conclusion. Bad strategizing or being intimidated by Bush can no longer explain the Dems’ failure to take any concrete steps to begin a withdrawal.
Progressives have been under the misapprehension that the Dems genuinely want to get out of Iraq, because progressives had thought that the American people had made a deal with the Democrats: we get you elected, and you get us out of Iraq.
Well, guess what: the Dems don’t see it that way. There should be nothing surprising about that. It is not the first time that politicians have made a promise that they did not intend to keep.
Alexander G Rubio, War Without End – Part V: Inexorable Forces
Mimikats, Time For Serious Talk On Iraq
Be careful when you say ‘the Dems’.
Which Dems?
Not me. Not my representative, Chaka Fattah.
Our problem is 90% Bush/Cheney, 9% Republican blind loyalty, and 1% Dems personal investment or fear.
They’re basically forcing the Dems to use tactical nuclear weapons to end this war, or even to do basic oversight. That’s the main problem.
But we can do something about it. Or, at least, we can try.
I meant “the Dems” as a political force in Washington, in terms of how it affects US policy and legislation.
So that includes the Bush Dogs and Reid and Pelosi, but not you or me, or your Rep, apparently. By this point, I’ve decided to use “the Dems” in this sense. If I mean Dems in your sense, I can avoid the “the”, or simply write “we”.
I still think you are wrong in believing that the Dem establishment is on our side, and really wants to end the war, but is simply afraid of going “nuclear”. You think they agree with us on ends but not means; I don’t think they agree with us on ends, either.
To a certain extent this is a theoretical as opposed to a practical question, since, if things get significantly bad militarily and/or electorally, “the Dems” will eventually have to agree with us on ends. But clearly, there has been a lot of debate on this issue in the blogosphere since May, with bloggers wringing their hands, complaining that they are “at a loss” to explain the Dems’ latest caving in to Bush. If you adopt the position that the Dems don’t agree with us on ends, then their behavior becomes a lot less perplexing, and there is a benefit to simply being less perplexed.
Again, describing ‘the Dems’ that way explains little. There are factions. There is no doubt that Pelosi wants to end the war. She’d also like to see Cheney in the Hague. But that does not automatically translate into action if her caucus cannot support those things. Her choices have been difficult. Impeachment, contempt of Congress, inherent contempt of Congress, refusal to offer military funding in a time of war…etc.
These are nuclear options. One does not take them lightly, and one does not take them if the end result is a political loss.
Adding to our problems, the Republicans can’t recruit any candidates, can’t raise any money, and just seem poised to take another one on the kisser in ’08. The Congress may have terrible approval numbers, but all other metrics say the Dems are strengthening each day. This is providing little sense of urgency.
That’s why we have to go after the Bush Dogs in some way.
If Pelosi really would “like to see Cheney in the Hague”, then—given that she has stated repeatedly that “impeachment is off the table”, defying the will of the people and her Constitutional duties—she is so confused that she is unfit for public office.
She’s not confused…she can count votes.
They didn’t have the votes when they started impeachment proceedings against Nixon as far as I understand—please correct me if I’m wrong—and Nixon was an Eisenhower to Bush’s Caligula.
The “don’t have the votes” excuse just doesn’t wash. She already took impeachment off the table in November: that was preemptive disarmament, an explicit assertion that she had absolutely no interest in amassing enough votes. What part of “off the table” don’t you understand?
I don’t mean to sound presumptuous, but your defense of the Dem establishment regarding their failure to stand up to Bush on any number of issues and occasions reminds me of Blair’s loyalty to Bush. As Jacques Chirac said, a true friend tells a friend when he is making a big mistake, rather than supporting him unconditionally.
I think that the best way to be loyal to the Dem Party today is to openly criticize the leadership, not to construct ever more implausible apologies for it.
Sigh.
There is a difference between apologizing for and explaining.
I don’t know how many diaries I’ve written urging people to do dual impeachment. Over two dozen, at least.
Pelosi is the Speaker of the House and the leader of the Democratic Party in the House. She doesn’t sit on any committees. Her job is full-time running the House and the Dem caucus within the House. If she had the votes to end this war she would end it. If she had the votes to throw Cheney out of office she would do it. It’s not an excuse to say that she does not have the votes.
She passed benchmarks…it got vetoed. Her caucus was not going to tolerate a decision to play chicken with the war funding…
And when I say caucus, I mean a portion of the caucus.
On FISA she got rolled plain and simple. The Senate left town and gave her a choice between passing their version or keeping the House in town and forcing the Senate to return. She caved and she should be criticized for it heavily. But it still wasn’t because she wanted to do it.
Again, I agree that they should go to war with this administration. But she has to govern her caucus and that is not easily done in a time where we are losing a war.
If you want to end a war, it should be easier to govern your caucus with that goal in mind when you are losing it than when you are winning it. Against the Empire as I am, I am not such an idealist that I would expect the Dems to try to end the war if we were winning it. I was against the war from the start not only because it is immoral and illegal, but also because one knows from history that the age of colonialism is over, so that conquering Iraq would be much more difficult than we were led to believe.
But I digress. What I wanted to say is that Conyers was one of the most vocal advocates of considering impeachment, but dropped the idea once Pelosi announced her “off the table” position. I have read that she basically ordered him not to pursue it: as you say, she doesn’t sit on any committee; because he is the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, he can block the initial phase, but she cannot.
Do you deny that she applied heavy pressure on him to shelve impeachment? No matter what dissent there may be in her caucus concerning impeaching Bush and/or Cheney, forbidding Conyers from starting proceedings against Cheney makes absolutely no sense, if you actually want Cheney impeached.
I am sorry that I have to rehearse the argument of impeachment proponents that once impeachment proceedings started, Bush’s and Cheney’s crimes would receive such wide coverage that Pelosi’s caucus would have to fall into line. And if the Rethugs held firm, Bush would still be dealt a crippling blow despite not getting removed from office, to such an extent that future presidents would think twice before engaging in similar criminal activities.
To repeat, Pelosi is not acting like someone who wants Cheney and/or Bush impeached. There might have been some plausibility to your arguments half a year ago, but both are widely detested now. There would be no rise of outrage against the Dems for trying to restore lawfulness to our government; on the contrary, Congress’s ratings are now in the sink hole precisely because they are not doing that. Also, as you have written in excellent posts yourself, impeachment is virtually essential to beginning to draw down the war before Bush’s term expires.
If you compare how the two rival explanations for the Dem leadership’s conduct relating to impeachment and ending the war stand up—that they want to do both but are stymied from doing so, because they “don’t have the votes”, don’t want to bring about a constitutional crisis (as if we are not already in the biggest one we have ever had, with each month of Dem inactivity making it more likely that the crisis will resolve itself by the patient dying), or whatever; or that they simply don’t want to do either, but merely pretend that they do, to keep their base from deserting them—I don’t think there’s any question that the latter stands up a lot better than the former.
I suspect that a main thing keeping you from coming to this conclusion is a belief in American exceptionalism: a belief that contrary to the experience in all other countries, the politicians in at least one of our parties are inherently virtuous.
Because, you see, virtue is the only thing that would get the Dems to end the war or to impeach. That’s because the system is rigged in such a way that the normal democratic mechanism of getting punished in elections if you screw the people that you count on to vote for you doesn’t work anymore. (Even if the netroots were able to replace every single Bush Dog with a progressive, that would be too late to get Bush and/or Cheney impeached.)
You are either being deliberately obtuse or I am not being clear.
If Pelosi could successfully impeach Bush and Cheney and secure their conviction, she would do it tomorrow and become President.
She can not. She got only two votes in the House from Republicans to begin to end this war. The press is almost universally hostile to even investigating this administration.
She told Conyers to build a case. We got stonewalled.
It is an incredibly difficult thing to try to extract us from a foreign policy fiasco at the same time that we try to remove the commander in chief from office or get him to comply with the law.
A significant portion of Dems are not willing to let things get that ugly. And Pelosi has to live by their rules. Things will be coming to a head soon, however. I can’t predict how things will shake out, but it will not be pretty.
It is an incredibly difficult thing to try to extract us from a foreign policy fiasco at the same time that we try to remove the commander in chief from office or get him to comply with the law.
I hadn’t heard that one before. I guess that has to be spelled out to me, since for me it goes without saying that whatever problem America has, Bush is part of the problem. But obviously that is not the conventional wisdom in D.C. or the media. Still, this seems to go against your own line of about four months ago that ending the war and impeachment go hand in hand.
I still don’t think you’ve given me an adequate explanation of why Conyer’s shouldn’t launch impeachment proceedings against Cheney, given that a majority of the American public want him impeached. He is not commander-in-chief. But Shrub is, and your argument that some people think that presidents shouldn’t be impeached while they are waging a war (even one that they started illegally) is a sound one.
As for your last point, it sounds like you are waiting for a deus ex machina. The problem is, if we don’t get one, Bush will serve out his term, and a Dem president (assuming Hillary isn’t the nominee) will be left with the task of ending the occupation starting from scratch.
The simple answer is that the job of Conyers is to build a case, not say that he wants to impeach and then build a case. And he and Leahy and Waxman are being stonewalled. The grounds of impeachment are building, but they are building as an obstruction of Justice and contempt of Congress case, rather than on the merits of this or that investigation.
This takes time, and all appearances must be made that Congress is being flexible and negotiating.
In the meantime, the bigger problem is Iraq. One reason Bush will not compromise on Iraq is that as long as that is unsettled, Congress cannot focus its full energies on oversight and/or impeachment.
If Bush agreed to pull out of Iraq tomorrow, impeachment would follow the next day. In fact, the entire rationale for his presidency would collapse like a house of cards.
Sorry. I didn’t get who the “we” were in “We got stonewalled”, and that you meant that the stonewalling was done by BushCo
I agree that so long as Bush manages to run the occupation without interference from Congress, it is hard for Congress to begin anything on the impeachment front. And that is a main reason why caving to him in May on the occupation supplemental bill was such a huge mistake. If they had imposed serious conditions forcing a real withdrawal on him, his commander in chief aura would have been gone: he would have become like Captain Dunsel, of Star Trek lore. (It’s remarkable what kind of trivia you can get by Googling. I never would have been able to remember “Dunsel” on my own.)
ya see- nobody wants to call out that bitch collins- which dem is calling for a “abrupt withdrawl”? That is why she is in serious trouble and is looking at defeat this time arount.
Every single time that a congress person lies, they should be called on the lie!
Nah= not these dems. Not a chance in hell!
Someone at the pond recently said the Dems are playing not to lose. I couldn’t agree more. It is similar to the type of thinking that makes American Beer the most tasteless on the planet. Don’t make it too strong or some people won’t like it. The result is beer that lacks flavor. The Dems seem to be betting on the GOP hanging themselves on Iraq. Then they will be there waiting in the wings. Not only is this playing safe morally wrong, (how can you not advocate withdrawal of troops from a war you don’t support?) but it assumes a static situation for the next fifteen months. A very convenient assumption for the DLC types, but if the past six years have taught me anything it is that we are living in inconvenient times.