Feingold, Obama, and Senate Republicans

Feingold is moving aggressively to cut off funding for the Iraq War forcing Bush to withdraw the troops, and he's doing so amidst Republican claims that only the president can decide on troop deployment.

Of course, Republicans were making exactly the opposite arguments during the Clinton presidency, as Glenn Greenwald digs up.

Sen. John McCain - October 19,1993

There is no reason for the United States of America to remain in Somalia. The American people want them home, I believe the majority of Congress wants them home, and to set an artificial date of March 31 or even February 1, in my view, is not acceptable. The criteria should be to bring them home as rapidly and safely as possible, an evolution which I think could be completed in a matter of weeks.

Our continued military presence in Somalia allows another situation to arise which could then lead to the wounding, killing or capture of American fighting men and women. We should do all in our power to avoid that.

I listened carefully to the President's remarks at a news conference that he held earlier today. I heard nothing in his discussion of the issue that would persuade me that further U.S. military involvement in the area is necessary. In fact, his remarks have persuaded me more profoundly that we should leave and leave soon.

Dates certain, Mr. President, are not the criteria here. What is the criteria and what should be the criteria is our immediate, orderly withdrawal from Somalia. And if we do not do that and other Americans die, other Americans are wounded, other Americans are captured because we stay too long--longer than necessary--then I would say that the responsibilities for that lie with the Congress of the United States who did not exercise their authority under the Constitution of the United States and mandate that they be brought home quickly and safely as possible [...]

I, along with many others, will have an amendment that says exactly that. It does not give any date certain. It does not say anything about any other missions that the United States may need or feels it needs to carry out. It will say that we should get out as rapidly and orderly as possible.

Note how unambiguous McCain was when it suited his partisan purposes. He clearly states that the Congress has "authority under the Constitution of the Untied States" to bring home the troops if it so declares. And Greenwald didn't stop there, collecting similar statements from Gramm, Thurmond, Kempthorne, Gorton, Helms, Simpson, and Gregg. Oh, and Russ Feingold, who made the exact same argument then as he does now. Funny that -- a real maverick who remains consistent on substantive Constitutional issues like Congress' war powers whether the president belongs to his party or otherwise.

Now this is where things are starting to get interesting. This is no longer a battle over whether Bush will run with McCain's escalation plan and prolong the war. This is now a battle over ending the war.

The bar is higher, and Obama is the first of the top-tier presidential contenders to clear it, and he did so with room to spare:

U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today introduced binding and comprehensive legislation that not only reverses the President’s dangerous and ill-conceived escalation of the Iraq war, but also sets a new course for U.S. policy that can bring a responsible end to the war and bring our troops home.

“Our troops have performed brilliantly in Iraq, but no amount of American soldiers can solve the political differences at the heart of somebody else’s civil war,” Obama said. “That’s why I have introduced a plan to not only stop the escalation of this war, but begin a phased redeployment that can pressure the Iraqis to finally reach a political settlement and reduce the violence.”

The Obama plan offers a responsible yet effective alternative to the President's failed policy of escalation. Realizing there can be no military solution in Iraq, it focuses instead on reaching a political solution in Iraq, protecting our interests in the region, and bringing this war to a responsible end. The legislation commences redeployment of U.S. forces no later than May 1, 2007 with the goal of removing all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008, a date that is consistent with the expectation of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

This isn't a wussy "stop the escalation" measure, nor some half-measure like "withdraw some troops but not all" (which appears to be the Edwards position). And forget Clinton. Who the heck knows what her position is? She's too busy trying to look "responsible" to give us an unambiguous position on Iraq. Of course, it helps that Obama is the only top-tier candidate to have opposed the war from the beginning...

But Obama's move will force the rest of the candidates to take a harder line on Iraq or risk being left behind. It seems like such an obvious move, but it's an indictment of DC that Obama's obvious stance is actually a sign of "leadership". With the Joe Kleins of the city castigating Democrats who don't fall in line behind Bush's latest lame-brained gambit, taking a position shared by over 60 percent of the American people and probably the entire Democratic primary electorate is tougher than you'd think.

Obviously, we won't be out of Iraq by March 2008. Bush has already said he's too much a coward to end the war. He'd rather force his successor to do it so he can rest easy at night, having blamed someone else for his fuckups. But it won't be long before the "responsible" position, no matter what McCain, Lieberman, and the DLC crowd might think, will be a one-year phased exit from Iraq.

And at that point we'll be much closer to ending this godforsaken disaster of a war than we've ever been.