The Dems need an overarching reason to persuade the electorate to put them in charge of both houses of Congress. The electorate has a lot to think about: Iraq, Civil Liberties, Loose Nukes, Checks and Balances, the balance of the Supreme Court, the weakening and misuse of our military, our energy policies, rebuilding governmental agencies, Homeland Security, Osama bin Laden, New Orleans, healthcare, and more.
Impeachment, while a wonderfully attractive idea, won't win elections for us. And the reason is that it won't change any of the major issues any time soon. It will require the Dems winning the House to get the ball rolling and then there would have to be a lengthy hearing process in which the Repubs will fight tooth, nail, and lie to delay until 2008. And during that hearing fight nothing will change in the Bush administration and the major issues will continue to be ignored or worse.
Withdrawal (even on Murtha's terms) is not an election winner because it is too difficult to see how that would change things for the better. Certainly our casualties would be practically eliminated and that is a good thing obviously, but the Repubs have successfully countered this argument (I know, the bastards did it unfairly in their Repugnant manner) by predicting doom if we leave the area. They have successfully continued to fear monger.
Filibuster obviously is not an election issue because Alito will be either in or out soon. If Bush gets to make more appointments this year, filibuster still won't sell because it fails to address the issues of Iraq and Homeland Security.
But a theme of Congressional Oversight is a winner. It addresses all of the major issues:
In Iraq we should say that Congress will insist on changes in Bush's Iraq policies. We should say that the goal for our involvement in Iraq is not "Victory" - a nebulous election slogan typical of the Repubs - but "Security." We need to say that we will continue to aid Iraq and help them establish a secure country. We don't care if it is a classic democracy or not. All we want is a government that guarantees the security, and good old American rights, of its citizens, its neighbors, and the rest of the world. We will insist that Bush start bringing in the rest of the world to help us in this work including the Arab nations.
We will insist that the focus of the war on terror be returned to its proper direction: WMD, especially Loose Nukes. We need to find the Nukes, control them, and stop those evildoers who are trying to build them or sell them to terrorists. We have to be adult about this and focus on the threats that will do the most harm.
The Alito nomination is an opportunity for us, if we seize it now. It can be used to illustrate to the public that the Repubs don't care about the Constitution. We say:
"Fellow Americans, Bush and his cronies are out of control. They have demonstrated their bias, their lack of respect for the Constitution, their cronyism, and their general incompetence. Their bias is to support the extremists in the party - the extreme Religious Right. Their lack of respect for the Constitution has been clearly demonstrated by the illegal wiretapping on American citizens. Their cronyism has been demonstrated by their persistent practice of appointing old friends, but incompetent friends, to important posts - for example Harriet Meirs was an old friend and Bush appointed her to the Supreme Court. And who can forget, (sorry Kos'ers I have forgotten his name), the head of FEMA and the disaster of New Orleans. Their general incompetence is demonstrated by Iraq. There they allowed Donald Rumsfeld, another old crony, to experiment with the lives of our soldiers and Iraqii innocent citizens by going into Iraq with too few troops and without a plan for winning the peace. Theory was substituted for sound, practical advice from the military leaders. In Iraq they allowed billions in contracts to be given without bidding to the companies of their cronies. Billions are unaccounted for, and you know that that usually means - the money has been stolen. So my fellow Americans, we have to filibuster Alito and any other appointments Bush may make, until we can get this process under control. Alito, like Meirs, is just another crony. The Supreme Court is just too important to leave to cronies. Now our Republican friends, and we still have some, need to put some responsibility in the process of judicial nominations right now. They need to tell Bush that he needs to delegate the appointment process to a blue ribbon panel approved by Congressional Republicans, Congressional Democrats, House and Senate, by major law school presidents, and by past Presidents - Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Gerald Ford or their designees. This panel would make nominations, without interference from outside. In this way we can take the politics out of the process. However if the Repubs insist on subverting the Constitution by failing to honor its provisions, we have no choice but to fight with the only tools we have and filibuster is one of those."
By finally acting like the only adults in the fight, and by saying that, if elected, we will return adult judgment to the Federal government we can win in 2006. But we need to start now. It is not too late to do it now with Alito as the bell ringer.