As someone who lived in San Francisco for most of the last 25 years, I've been a longtime fan of Jon Carroll, a daily columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. But it wasn't until this morning that I caught up with Tuesday's column. The overall theme of the column is decrying the War and the resultant deaths.
Overall, I agreed with the sentiments, but I stopped short at the following:
Over in the House, Nancy Pelosi, showing the grit of the plucky little gold rush town that is her chosen home, actually managed to round up the vote to pass a nonbinding resolution.
It has to be nonbinding because Congress can't really bind the White House. It can cut off money for the soldiers, although it does seem unfair to punish the soldiers for following orders.
I have a hard time seeing this as different from: We can't defund the War because it would not be supporting the troops.
And this is Jon Carroll of San Francisco! He who has been a strident (if quirky) critic of the Bush regime since before the AUMF. If he's saying that, what hope is there that we'll ever be able to defund the War?-- which as Big Tent Democrat keeps reminding us is not only our best chance but the honest, legitimate duty of the current Congress.
Elsewhere Carroll writes:
The Democrats are supposed to be the party of opposition, and they're doing that a little better than they were before.
The Democrats are the Majority Party in Congress now-- not the Opposition Party. They have some power now and we who voted for them expect them to use it.
Has even Jon Carroll been poisoned by the Republican Talking Points machine?