So this week we'll see your standard-issue Democratic capitulation on Iraq. Sure, Reid and his pals will talk about "compromise", but "compromises" include both sides surrendering something to find "common ground". Yet watch Democrats rubber stamp another $200 billion for this disastrous, unpopular (hated!) war, without getting a single thing in return.
Democrats, it seems, have forgotten what a real compromise looks like, to everyone's detriment (except the GOPs).
Clearly, the most obvious tactic -- refuse to fund until Republicans genuinely compromise -- is beyond the grasp of the risk-averse Democratic cowards in DC. At least in the Senate. And Pelosi has shown no inclination of stepping up to the plate and showing real leadership on the issue -- refusing to cave to the GOP minority in the other chamber. Reid may be in a weak position thanks to the Senate's rules, but Pelosi is under no such pressures.
So if playing hardball is beyond them, then why not simply lose? Why not pass a Republican funding bill with next-to-ZERO Democratic support? Pin this god-forsaken war completely on Republicans. Why is there this pathetic need to "pass something" with "bipartisan support"?
There is a clear disagreement on this most important of issues facing our country. Why not underline that disagreement and at least get some residual political benefit out of it? Let them have their war without enabling it further. Pin the war on the Republicans who will pathologically vote for it (lest Mr. 25% get mad at them) and we can clear them out in 2008 and get a Congress and White House that will kill this war dead once and for all.
We should know by now that we go to DC with the Democrats we have, not the ones we wish we had.
And we should definitely know that cleaning up DC and getting a stronger and fearless Democratic Party is (and always has been) a long-term project -- decades long.
But damn, it would be nice if our current bunch were a little less useless.
Update: BarbinMD in the comments has another good suggestion:
Why not let the Republicans bring up their own funding bills and block them (God knows they've seen enough of that in the last 8 months to see how it's done). Block each and every one with the same response: This isn't what the American people want. Get some freaking headlines that say, "Republicans fail again."