With the Republican majority leader of the Senate under investigation, the Republican majority leader of the House indicted, the Republican chief of staff of the Vice President indicted, and other Republican senior officials in the White House under investigation, now is the time for Democrats to step up and lead us out of the mess the Republican party has led us into for the last five years. Democratic leaders should give us a Blueprint for America, with three clear solutions:
- Withdraw from Iraq now
- Create an energy plan for America
- Fix the health care system
It is time to stop reacting to news, and to start making news.
It is time to stop going on the Sunday shows and being led by the nose by the host or the Republican foil.
It is time to lead.
Are you listening, Sen. Kennedy? Sen. Obama? Sen. Feingold? Sen. Boxer?
All you DailyKos-member Democratic leaders -- we need you.
DailyKos is an open-source think tank. Meteor Blades, Jerome a Paris, and Devilstower have already shown us how to use it to draft policy. They have proposed an absolutely outstanding
energy plan called Reenergize America.
I'd like to start the ball rolling on a proposal for beginning a safe, sound withdrawal from Iraq immediately. I hope others will take over the lead from here -- I do not have the skill, experience, or maturity to initiate a project on the scale of the Reenergize America plan.
And that is the goal: three concrete plans for Democrats to start talking about immediately, to turn the conversation from Republican failings to how Democrats will fix this mess we're in.
Here's my start:
WITHDRAW FROM IRAQ NOW
Begin a safe, sound withdrawal from Iraq immediately
- Bring 7,500 troops home for Christmas, to stay. That's about a 5% reduction in the U.S. Iraq force. Bring another 7,500 home for their children's graduations next May.
- Remove John Bolton from the United Nations. President Bush went behind the back of Congress to appoint U.N. ambassador John Bolton, an insult and an affront to every nation we work with. In a sign of remorse and outreach, the President must ask Bolton to leave and appoint in his place a true ambassador.
- Increase the support of other nations. We went into Iraq without the world's support. We cannot leave that way. As a gesture of reconciliation, and in support of the U.S. exit of Iraq, ask the nations of the world to send in additional troops, not to help us occupy that country but to help us leave it.
Those are my starting points. I hope you will build and improve them. What do you, as a voter, as a taxpayer, as an American want to see your country do now?
Places to look for ideas:
Retreating in Good Order (pdf) and What's wrong with Cutting and Running? by Lt. Gen. William Odom, director of the National Security Agency under Reagan and current adjunct professor at Yale, who has called Iraq a strategic disaster and laid out proposals for an immediate withdrawal.
(Add useful references in the comments and I will update this list.)