I'm talking about the most recent in a long, long string of surrenders on Iraq War funding. The Democratic party seems to be finding more and more creative ways to write blank checks.
How frustrating to be a Democrat. I'm not a Democrat, and I'm continually frustrated beyond belief.
Here they are, in the majority, holding positions on most of the hot button issues that a VAST majority of the country agrees with them on, and yet they continually hem and haw and outright balk, and not only fail to pass their agendas, but continually get thwarted at a 2nd grade level in opposing the minority's.
Seriously, the Democratic case to the American public is a good one. A great one. So good, in fact, that apparently now the REPUBLICANS have largely adopted it ("compassionate" conservatism, largely abandoning small governmentism). How is it, then, that they're so characteristically gun-shy? Why do they seem to harbor this dominating belief that you have to keep liberalism in the closet like child molestation, like they're worried there's this constant Red Scare towards being a real Democrat going on? How---and why---have they so internalized right-wing criticism that they seem to believe it themselves? And how has this gone on for generations, even when they were clearly elected with an outright mandate for the most salient aspects of their agenda, like ending or putting the brakes on the Iraq War?
I really just don't get it. Was the one-two punch of Reagan and the Contract with America such a trauma for them that, 17 years later, they're still jumping every time someone screams "liberal!"? You've got a President whose approval ratings haven't been over 35% basically since his reelection, a Republican Congressional caucus that just got walloped in the last election and can't even retain its candidates, much less recruit news ones or raise money, and the Democrats are still acting like a Jewish family hiding in an attic in Nazi Poland (tasteless analogy, but you get the drift). I agree with Andrew Sullivan that the mere fact of their reelection has already had a huge effect on U.S. policy, but still. If the best argument for a party's election is that they'll influence the other party in positive ways, you've got problems, right there.
To wit, in the seemingly bi-monthly battle over Iraq war funding, the Democrats seem to be finding more and more pathetic ways to capitulate.
Democrats controlling Congress sent the most explicit signals yet on Thursday that they are resigned to providing additional funding for the war in Iraq before Congress adjourns for the year.
Conceding that President Bush is in a strong position as Congress seeks to wrap up its work, Democrats are cooking up a pre-Christmas endgame that would deliver tens of billions of dollars for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan on conditions acceptable to the White House.
The Iraq funding would ultimately be attached by Bush's Senate GOP allies to a $500 billion-plus "omnibus" appropriations bill taking shape in closed-door talks. That's the only way they would let the measure advance through the Senate.
House Democratic leaders, though hardly enthusiastic about the idea, recognize it is the only way for Democrats to have a chance to wrap up their long-unfinished budget work and adjourn just before Christmas.
The plan, if I understand it, is to pass an omnibus funding bill without any funds for the mission in Iraq. Senate Democrats will instead allow the GOP to add on whatever they want to that Democrat-authored bill, blame Republicans for threatening a filibuster, after which the House will "reluctantly" pass the funding in conference.
If you're an anti-war Democratic voter, I want you to really drink that one in.
The "compromise" that congressional Democrats have made over Iraq war funding is to let the Republicans do it themselves. That's the bloody COMPROMISE position!
If that's the compromise, what's the starting point for negotiation, to give them twice what they ask for and shine their fucking shoes?
Explain to me again why anti-war voters shouldn't be looking to anti-war Republicans or third party candidates to throw in with? Why am I being asked to continually reward people who throw my beliefs under the bus at seemingly every opportunity?
I may be a cheap date, but I'm not that cheap.
Cross-posted at The Crossed Pond.