From the WaPo coverage:
Incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whose party campaigned in the November congressional elections on changing course in Iraq, said he would be open only to a short-term increase.
"If the commanders on the ground said this is just for a short period of time, we'll go along with that," said Reid, D-Nev., citing a time frame such as two months to three months. But a period of 18 months to 24 months would be too long, he said.
"The American people will not allow this war to go on as it has. It simply is a war that will not be won militarily. It can only be won politically," Reid said.
I try to tell myself not to second guess Senator Reid too often, but I'm not even the first in line here.
At least three other Democrats did not support Reid's position on the additional troops.
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said that if it were a short-term increase, "won't our adversaries simply adjust their tactics, wait us out and wait until we reduce again? So I think you'd have to ask very serious questions about the utility of this."
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said, "I respect Harry Reid on it, but that's not where I am." [...]
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said any proposal to send more troops should only follow a political solution that will end civil unrest. "The president and others who support the surge have it exactly backwards," Biden said during a speech in Manchester, N.H.
The political problem, of course, is the same one we've been dealing with all along. Fear of the "Dems are soft on the war/terror" meme. Or its evil twin, "We coulda won if it hadn't been for those meddling Democrats."
But the time has come to cut Bush off. He's out of political capital, and is casting his eyes about to see if anyone will nod assent to putting his counterfeit Rolex on the table to get back in the game.
Nobody profits from playing cards with a degenerate gambler who can't cover his bets. Least of all one who has nothing to lose from taking a beating rather than paying up.
Is George W. Bush a lame duck or not? The man just lost Congress on his own pet issue. Stop treating him like a player.
If the past six years has made anything clear, it's that Bush simply cannot be trusted. Sad as it is to say, the word of the President of the United States carries no weight, and Senators who take themselves seriously owe it to themselves and their constituents to behave accordingly.
What guarantee have we that this "temporary surge" is anything of the sort? This president has insisted from the beginning that his "inherent powers" as Commander in Chief know no bounds. Literally none. That by itself is a claim that disqualifies you from the public trust.
But even if it were not so, what guarantees would Congress have, even from a president firmly grounded in reality, that a "temporary surge" would be and remain just that? None at all. Certainly none that preserve any alternatives to precisely what Democrats open to this possibility fear most: a record vote to terminate support and authorization for the war.
There may or may not be reasons grounded in military logistics for the deployment of additional troops. That's a question that's simply beyond the scope of what I can discuss.
There may even be a school of thought in which approving the "surge" means giving Bush more rope with which to hang himself. And I'll leave the evaluation of the moral worth of that kind of thinking to others. Recall, though, that it has been this president's contention from day one that he's entitled to all the rope he wants, with or without you. So, what's the real tactical value of handing it to him? Trading the media's "strong leader" meme for a "consensus builder" meme? No thanks.
We learned the other day that the approval ratings for Bush's handling of this war are sitting at just 21%. We learned that more people think this war is a mistake than felt the same about Vietnam at its peak.
Under the circumstances, frankly, giving your approval to this "surge" idea means you own it.
[UPDATE:] I see lots of speculation that what Reid's really doing here is goading Bush into making another blunder. And as I said above, I'll leave it to others to evaluate the moral worth of such a strategy.
I'll simply say this: Bush needs to be encouraged to send more troops to Iraq like Obama needs a "draft" movement.
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