Tonight I was going to write a Kumbaya on defunding, as I believe Geekesque and I, my doppelganger for the "we can't defund" group, reached a better understanding of our differences.

Instead my diary is about something else.

More on the flip.

Congressman Murtha said today:

MR. RUSSERT: What are the Democrats going to do to try to stop the war in Iraq?

REP. MURTHA: Well, the, the details haven’t been released yet. Until the members see it, we’re not going to talk about the details of what’s going to happen. That will be released tomorrow.

I'll withhold judgment then Congressman. Meanwhile, the Out of Iraq Caucus is:

becoming increasingly frustrated by what its members say is the Democratic leadership’s unwillingness to heed their calls for decisive action to the end the war.

Me too.

Do I have to write it again? Yes.

Why? Because I believe there is no more important issue today that ending the Iraq War. And the only way to do it while Bush is President is to defund the war.

The particulars are available in my diary list. But I want to expand on a tangential issue - the harmful (yes I think it is harmful) subsuming of issues for candidates for the 2008 Presidential election. It has no only infected the discussion here, it has infected community behavior. It is extremely harmful imo.  

Continuing to earn my keep as Vilsack supporter, Bob Johnson supporter, Edwards shill (for those who really want sound ground to attack me, I will almost certainly be a Clark supporter if he runs, even though I rip him TOO), I want to address the central defense presented for Obama's opposition to defunding the Iraq Debacle, that legislative realities make it impossible. To wit:

. . . In the Senate you still need 60 votes. . .

Indeed, count up to 67 to overcome a Bush veto. And this is precisely why Obama is full of shit on this. NO LEGISLATION ending the Iraq Debacle can overcome this reality. That is why Obama's proposal, Murtha's proposal, Sestak's proposal, etc. are all bullshit. I am for defunding the war because it requires precisely NO passage of any laws, rather the ensuring that no laws are passed that fund the Iraq Debacle. The defunding bar is in fact the lowest we can hurdle, and thus the one REALISTIC proposal for ending the Iraq Debacle.

From TalkLeft:

Via dpg, in an interview with Ed Schultz, Barack Obama chose to insult those of us committed to ending the Debacle in Iraq while simultaneously getting punked by George Bush, and bringing Jim Webb along for the ride.

More.

Many Democratic Senators like John Kerry and Hillary Clinton have argued for years that their vote in October 2002 in favor of the Iraq AUMF was not a vote for war, but to give the President leverage. That is a crock of course. No, the stark choice presented was for war with Iraq or against war with Iraq.

Today, the choice for Congress is just as stark - for continuing the Iraq Debacle or for ending the Iraq Debacle. Democrats in Congress simply have not and apparently will not anytime soon accept this reality. More and please use Danby's diary for action contacts.

Today, in Kos' FP posts asking how the Dem leaders are doing, I had an exchange with some kossacks about Senate Leader Reid. Reid's numbers deteriorated badly and one kossack wondered why there was a divergence between Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid. I think the differences are easily explained. While Pelosi has not distinguished herself on Iraq, she had other notable successes. By contrast, Reid not only was ineffectual on Iraq, he almost blundered into a serious mistake when he embraced the Warner Amendment on the Surge.

This kossack pointed to the Senate rules as an explanation. But the Senate rules come as no surprise to anyone. Reid should not have been surprised by GOP recalcitrance and obstruction. It was to be EXPECTED! The lead on Iraq must come from the House. The Senate needs to understand and accept this. More.

Update [2007-2-28 1:19:37 by Big Tent Democrat]: Use Danby's diary for action contacts.

There was a time, circa 2005 and 2006, when I argued against Dem plans for Iraq:

With due respect to everybody that wants to play President, Bush is the President and we should concentrate on ripping him to shreds for the Iraq Debacle, including his current failures. . . . None of it matters until Dems get some power.

But now Dems control the Congress, and this approach will no longer work. For in 2008, the American People will PROPERLY ask what did the Dems do to end the Iraq Debacle?

Sy Hersh's New Yorker article points to a key issue about the BushCo drive for war with Iran:

The [Bush Administration] panel initially focused on destroying Iran's nuclear facilities and on regime change but has more recently been directed to identify targets in Iran that may be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq, according to an Air Force adviser and a Pentagon consultant, who were not identified.

To me, this is confirmation of my view that the road to war with Iran runs through Iraq.

Will Dems in Congress end the Iraq Debacle? Let me say this, I do believe the majority of Dems in the House WANT to. But it is beginning to look like they have no clue how to do it politically:

The story of Murtha's star-crossed plan illustrates the Democratic Party's deep divisions over the Iraq war and how the new House majority has yet to establish firm control over Congress. From the beginning, Murtha acted on his own to craft a complicated legislative strategy on the war, without consulting fellow Democrats. When he chose to roll out the details on a liberal, antiwar Web site on Feb. 15, he caught even Pelosi by surprise while infuriating Democrats from conservative districts.

I was not a fan of Murtha's plan. I found it too clever by half. But the BIGGEST problem with the Dems right now are the idiot Representatives quoted on the record in this story, including our friend Joe Sestak. Let's call them out on the flip.

The Media has always virtually ignored the issue of money in politics. I have always considered it a major issue, but, like the Israel/Palestine issue, not seeing any readily discernible solution, I don't spend much time on it. The Media does not either, other than using it to extoll how much of a maverick McCain is or covering Abramoff's crimes.

But the Washington Post pays attention now, because it can bash Dems. Clearly, the hire of John Solomon was for this purpose. Today, he joint authors another hit piece:

Democrats took over in January after a campaign that accused Republicans of fostering a "culture of corruption" in Washington and "selling access" to lawmakers. Abramoff has been convicted of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy and is in federal prison. Now, with the tables turned, Democrats are courting Abramoff's most famous clientele -- Indian tribes.

What a bigoted piece of crap - Indian tribes are reduced to being "Abramoff's clients? Outrageous. And wrong.

This ought to be interesting:

American troops seized and then released the eldest son of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, perhaps the most powerful Shiite political leader in Iraq, after he crossed the border from Iran into Iraq on Friday morning.

Who is Hakim? This guy:

President Bush's encounter at the White House today with Iraqi Shiite politician Abdul Aziz al-Hakim—seldom result in sweeping policy shifts. . . . So what signal, exactly, is President Bush trying to send by meeting with Hakim, one of the most revered, but also controversial, Shiite figures in Iraq?

So the Sunni, Al Qaida, Sadr and now SCIRI are the bad guys in Iraq? Any "good" guys left? Well, Chalabi is always available . . . More.

The NYTimes editorial page takes note of the egregious decision handed down by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and calls for action:

In another low moment for American justice, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that detainees held at the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, do not have the right to be heard in court. . . . The right of prisoners to challenge their confinement — habeas corpus — is enshrined in the Constitution and is central to American liberty. Congress and the Supreme Court should act quickly and forcefully to undo the grievous damage that last fall’s law — and this week’s ruling — have done to this basic freedom. . . . Congress should not wait for the Supreme Court to act. With the Democrats now in charge, it is in a good position to pass a new law that fixes the dangerous mess it has made. Senators Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, have introduced a bill that would repeal the provision in the Military Commissions Act that purports to obliterate the habeas corpus rights of detainees. . . .

One of the infamous legal theories that has underpinned the abuse of the Constitution by the Bush Administration has been the Unitary Executive:

What does a "unitary executive mean . . . for Bush:

The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks.

But in order to distinguish the SCOTUS' Rasul decision in the recent Gitmo habeas case, the Bush Administration has disavowed implicitly the unitary executive theory. Yes, heads will spin.

In a divided 2-1 ruling,  Boumediene v.  Bush, a panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the "enemy alien" detainees at Guantanamo do not have a Constitutional right to a writ of habeas corpus. The decision is an exercise in disengenuity. It accepts as undisputed fact, without the merest discussion - that the detainees do not have Constitutional habeas rights because (1) Guantanamo is outside of the control of the US government (contradicting the Supreme Court holding in Rasul) and that (2) the detainees are "enemy aliens" for habeas purposes (though that is "irrelevant", see paragraph below.)

The DC Circuit concedes at fn. 8 that in fact the detainees are NOT enemy aliens, but that it does not matter anyway - thus standing Eisentrager on its head. And this is not insignificant  - for the reasoning could be read to allow the Executive to detain American citizens outside US territory as well.

I believe the way to end the US involvement in Iraq is to announce a date certain for ending funding of the war. There is much confusion on how such a strategy would succeed. I think the fundamental confusion is the failure to understand that to defund the war the Congress need not pass any legislation at all. It merely must REFRAIN from passing legislation that funds the war.

But here is the most important part of the equation - the Democratic leadership of the Congress must announce now the date certain when it will no longer fund the Iraq war. It must tell the American People now that the funding will end on x date, and that it is incumbent on the President to adjust his actions accordingly. More.

that daily kos' college hoops team, the Fighting Florida Gators, would lose to Vanderbilt yesterday I would STILL have written this.

I take responsibility for my diary. It was a sincere diary based on the facts and assurances we had at the time. And Obviously I would not vote write that way again if we knew then what we know now.

Update [2007-2-18 15:31:56 by Big Tent Democrat]: Here is some substance if you are into that.

I'm taking a break from the site, but I wrote the post below for Talk Left, and thought it would be of interest here.

The title of the piece is "Iran: The War Power, Clinton and the War Powers Act"

Sorry for not commenting, breaking my cardinal rule of civil and effective diarying. Peace. No tip jar.