David Sirota had a recommended diary up yesterday complaining about Congressional inaction over Iraq. Or Herseth's scepticism about the precise meaning of polls. Or something.
Now I love Sirota's writing. I really do! He's passionate, he's committed to values I share, he's not afraid to say clearly what he thinks. I admire him for it.
But I'm really getting tired of the martyr complex I see amongst us of the left. If our team isn't pushing the envelope to the point where at least a few of us are risking their political careers, we think we're not doing enough.
From early 2000 (yes, before he took office), many of us never trusted the shrub. Krugman was our prophet (well, mine, anyway). For 6 years we've watched him trash the place, rob the country of its wealth and its honor, and watched with disbelief as he was re-elected. (My wife and I had organized a Kerry victory party on election day--it turned into a "drown your sorrows" party!)
So with the 2006 Democratic victories, so many of us wanted, expected, DEMANDED instant action from the Democrats in congress. Two whole months have gone by, and what have they achieved?? Some non-binding resolutions! A couple of hearings!! Some half-promises, subsequently retracted!!! Spineless jellyfish! Unprincipled hacks!! Cynical, posturing clowns!!!
Time to take a deep breath.
We won majorities in Congress. The Democratic sweep was "historic", but that's only because incumbents almost always win. We do not have veto-proof majorities in either house, and we just barely have a majority in the senate. We certainly don't have a filibuster-proof majority in the senate.
The shrub is very unpopular--but only by hisoric standards. But he still retains a bigger base of support than even Nixon, who was merely a petty crook by the shrub's murderous standards.
For fleeting moments during the nadir of the Lewinsky scandal, so was Clinton flirting with how approval ratings (at least personal ratings, if not necessarily job-approval ratings). What turned it around for him? We didn't slowly come to realize he was innocent or anything. I remember watching his famous finger-wagging press conference ("...that woman, Ms Lewinsky"). I wanted to believe him, so I did. Learning that he lied would normally have turned me off Clinton totally, but didn't. Why?
Because of the newt. And Bob what's-his-name from Georgia, the one who paid for his soon-to-be-ex wife's abortion while resolutely opposing abortion rights for all women. Because of the obvious, cynical and repulsive partisanship, lies, distortion and hatefulness of the republic party noise machine.
What manner of idiots are we, then, to learn nothing from this? Yes, yes, we believe that the cases are totally different. Please spare me the lecture on "Bush lied, people died". Not because it's not true, but because I'm with you already! In fact, I was there before many of you--I was convinced before March 2003 that the Iraq misadventure would lead nowhere.
I'm convinced that the whole enterprise was pointless. I've been reading Krugman, Ritter, Atrios, and Juan Cole, and remember being disappointed with Josh Marshall's blind spot back then. I even exchanged an e-mail or two with him back then, IIRC.
But I also recognize that despite the strength of our revulsion and distrust of the shrub and the dick, a majority of voters re-elected those jerks. I've never bought into the Kerry vilification I've seen in lefty circles. Yes, he could've campaigned tougher, but then, I'm also a great football quarterback from my armchair--you should've seen how well I called the plays for the Bears!
We won majorities in both houses in 2006, but it wasn't a slam-dunk. Despite the utter, drooling idiocy of the shrub and his henchmen, we won many races by the skin of our teeth. Was that because, unlike Webb, our candidates were too scared to draw contrasts stark enough to convince voters? I'm sure that's so in some cases. But not in all, probably not even in most! Or else explain Lieberman to me.
No matter how convinced we are of the shrub and the republicans' venality and corruption, we are not a majority of the voters. There's the substantial hard-core wingnut base. There's the substantial republic party loyalist base. And there's the vast mushy middle which rarely thinks much about these things, and decides pretty much just minutes before entering the poll booth which way to vote!
If we don't take into account what Josh calls the "optics" of our tactics, we will lose. And please don't tell me "our" team has the moral obligation to stop the war, whatever the personal cost to their miserable political selves. Please. Our congresscritters are no less human than the rest of us. If my career were in politics, I would know, know deep in my bones that only those who win elections get to make a difference. And get to stay in politics.
The momentum has to build in the country at large for any decisive action on Iraq. What, the vast majority of the populace, in all polls, for the past many weeks, want either an immediate or relatively rapid withdrawal? Great! Can I take that to the bank?
A couple of political mis-steps, and the poll respondent can smoothly switch to saying that Democrats treated the war as a partisan playground. I did the same in the Clinton-Lewinsky thing. And yes, the political dynamics are the same, even though clearly the one was a consensual blowjob and the other involves the deaths of (hundreds of) thousands of innocents!
And finally, we won majorities in Congress. We did not win the presidency. And this is how Congress works. Debates. Hearings. Subpoenas. Investigations. Speeches, on the floor and elsewhere. Even if Bush flouts every law on the books, Congress itself can do nothing directly--the best they can do directly is to file lawsuits to get the courts to stop him via injunctions.
And, of course, impeach. But that needs a whole bunch of votes in the House. And then a two-thirds majority in the Senate. If you think our outrage is enough to give that outcome, then ask yourselves we can't even get Cheney's energy task force country club membership list after 5 years of trying!
So let's not get too carried away, ok? Waxman, Dingell, Conyers, et al are building up the momentum. They already have the shrub on the ropes. It will take time, but let's take a moment to acknowledge the truth: Pelosi and her lieutenants are doing pretty damn good--it's only been two months since that fat bastard had to haul his ass out of the speaker's chair!
Let's not eat our own just yet? After all, they may be sons-of-bitches, but they really are our sons-of-bitches, in the real, moral sense. The vast majority of them, anyway!