We Democrats blew a prime opportunity to reverse the frame last week. As I listened to Dubya sputter about measuring progress in Iraq, sans accountability, I saw the gaping hole in his argument.
By finally conceding that we actually need a metric by which to gauge our progress, but refusing to accept the consequences of a deteriorating situation, he is admitting ahead of time that the current course of action will not succeed. It's like establishing a rule but then not assigning a punishment - Bush is planning to evade his responsibility when the time comes, and it's the reason he's been avoiding the subject of gauging progress ever since the war began. Bush is planning on failure.
And like parents who never discipline their children, the Democrats in Congress allow their authority to be usurped by this petulant brat. Our leadership is so afraid of the fringe, that they can't distinguish where to draw the line. So they take miniscule advances, imperceptibly small so that they can then retreat back to safety of the center, simultaneously extolling their bold strides to the supporters and meanwhile countering their critics by saying that it was never a departure.
This lack of leadership, this inability to take a stand is the blade that cuts our own hamstrings. We should have staked out the high ground with the phrase "planning on failure," years ago, but by not taking a stand we've allowed ourselves to be overrun by the very same strategy which should have us on the offensive.