That is the problem, or at lest there is no firm commitment to bring them ALL (or even most) home.
You see, Rahm, the problem with your latest pile of crap you and your Democratic Party colleagues are peddling is that you can’t even honestly talk with a straight face about bringing our troops home (hat tip to andgarden for his diary from last night.
I was going to write about the impact of the Kyl/Lieberman hall pass for Bush and Cheney to attack Iran, the ongoing disaster in Iraq and Afghanistan and the threats arising everywhere else on our already stretched too thin military. I was also going to write about the fact that the next President will inherit a military that will likely have barely functional equipment, subpar armor and weapons and will have the lowest morale in my lifetime. And while that is all relevant, we now know that the bar has now been moved to 2013 by none other than Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in terms of when they can “bring our troops home”, as Rahm said.
Oh sure, we have the “we won’t get into hypothetical situations” line that Senator Clinton has become fond of and is now being adopted by other candidates. But the bottom line is that the Presidential primaries are a job interview for the Presidency and we, the ones who are interviewing you for that position want to know how you would perform in that capacity.
Period.
And if we can’t even get a commitment for the ONE THING that we were promised, when it is clear as day that sitting on your hands is not remotely close to all that you can do now to move us away from never ending war.
There is no accountability for this debacle. There is no plan for getting us out in the next eighteen months. Or to even try.
And that is a dangerous proposition for the Congressional Democratic leadership to be putting forth at this point in time. Dangerous for our troops, dangerous for the Iraqi people, dangerous for America’s security, dangerous for America’s economy and dangerous for your reelection prospects.
If you think that the independents who are sick of the occupation in Iraq, the never ending stream of billions of dollars sunk there and the complete lack of accountability to the troops and the American people by Mister Bush and now, members of the Congressional Democratic leadership like Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi and even those who are running for President, then you are sorely mistaken. Despite the overwhelming disgust for the republican corruption and lack of caring for the needs of We the People, there are many who will see this as “more of the same” or “what’s the difference between the two parties”.
Now, I am not one of those people, but there are millions of them in this country. These people are not stupid. These people want out of Iraq. They know that Congress can defund the occupation and want Congress to do this in increasing numbers. To wait for “the next President” to bring our troops home is lazy and disingenuous.
And we now know that it is patently false, since the top three contenders on the Democratic side have joined all of the republican candidates (except for Ron Paul) in keeping our troops in Iraq.
How will you explain the difference between the parties to all of those independent voters and undecided voters?
also in orange
on the repeat. Some Friday nights I just cannot keep my eyes open.
If it wasn’t for Michael Dyson and Pete Hamill, I would have been talking to myself throughout.
Rahv thinks that Hillary is going to take care of it? Or Obama? Hell, no. If a Dem-dominated Congress with those traitor Blue Dems can’t handle it, the same idiocy is going to occur with Hill/Bill (who now reminds me of the gubernatorial team of Lurleen and George Wallace). The moment a Dem walks into the White House–if a Dem walks into the White House in 2009–it becomes the Dems’ war until we get the f–k out of there.
Interrogators of Democratic political figures need to stipulate beforehand whether they represent the DLC faction or the Left Wing. Now we have a position out there that is allegedly Democratic, but is nothing more than Republican Lite, all over again.
That’s the beauty of it.
They don’t have to explain the difference or even show that there IS one.
All they have to do is make sure that no one ELSE will be allowed to take office. This is a much simpler problem, logistically and psychologically.
mario cuomo nailed it on hardball the other day:
different even? for all intents and purposes it’s all one and the same when it comes to iraq. there is a huge leadership vacuum in this country, and clinton, obama, et al, are proving themselves incapable of, or unwilling to, fill it.
lTMF’sA…and while we’re at it, how about some new leadership in the house and senate, eh.
there is a huge leadership vacuum in this country
It’s worse than that. There is a democratic deficit, to put it mildly. The system is obviously rigged so that presidential candidates who actually reflect the views of voters have no chance of getting nominated. Let’s face it: America isn’t really a democracy any more: the political system goes through the rituals of democracy, but that is all. America is a formal democracy, not a substantive one. If it were a substantive democracy, the federal government would follow the will of the people at least some of the time.
Leftist Europeans were already saying that America isn’t a democracy twenty years ago. We might as well admit the obvious now, too. Unfortunately, the nationalism that is drilled into Americans their whole lives, according to which America is the beacon of liberty for all the world, will keep most from doing that.
This is a problem all over the world. Look at Engand and Tony Blair. The people need to start engaging in civil disobedience, and we need to cost the elites money.
There is a difference between the two parties, but not nearly enough difference. The Democratic Party “leadership” has made it clear that it doesn’t care about the left since they are counting on us to vote for any candidate they nominate because the Republican will be much worse. As long as that is true, they will continue to ignore us.
We need to have a strategy to get us out of the DLC voter trap. We can withhold funding, and I assume very few progressives are sending money to the DNC or the Senate or House campaign committees, but progressives are not the major funders and our few dollars will not be missed. We need to field candidates against both the Democrats and Republicans. The Christian right nutjobs are planning to put up an independent should a insufficiently right-wing or insufficiently Christian candidate get the Republican nomination. Progressives should do the same.