Last week I wrote
Throw The Bums Out where I said:
Digby writes:
It's not impossible for an opposition party to function in [the current] environment; it means that their only choice is accept that they are irrelevant to actual governance. That's the simple reality in this quasi-parliamentary system the Republicans have rigged up. What that means is that you have to take every opportunity to make your argument clearly and concisely over and over again. You use whatever institutional levers you have at your disposal to put the other side off balance, expose their real agenda and get them on the record doing unpopular things. Everything is about setting up sharp distinctions and preparing the ground for the next election.
. . . This is an election about throwing the bums out and Democrats need to make a clear statement of fundamental values, not policy differences. . . .
To my very great pleasure, for the umpteenth time, Digby and I agree to the last detail. Clear distinctions means a politics of contrast. It means Lincoln 1860. Throw the bums out means branding the Republicans as corrupt extremists, beholden to the Napolis and Dobsons.
What it means most of all is making the GOP answer for Bush
. . . Every day the GOP stands and defends George W. Bush is a good day for Democrats. Russ Feingold made that happen today. Some DC Establishment Dems are worried about how that makes them look. They should be thinking about how it made Republicans look. The Rubber Stamp Republicans in Congress embraced the Bush Administration today and its illegality.
Remember what this election is about - throw the bums out.
The most important substantive issue is Bush's evisceration of the checks and balances of our Constitution. But the most important POLITICAL issue for this election is - wait for it - Iraq:
Despite a series of presidential speeches meant to bolster support for the war in Iraq, as well as the announcement of a major military offensive when the poll was getting under way, only 29 percent of the people questioned approved Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq. Fully 65 percent disapprove.
Idiots like Marshall Wittman urge Dems to embrace Bush's Iraq policy. Some of my friends urge Dems to embrace Murtha's call for withdrawal. I adhere to my "Throw the Bums Out" analysis -- make the Rubber Stamp Republicans embrace Bush and his Iraq Debacle - make the question of Election 2006 be "Do You Approve Of Bush's Iraq Policy?" If you do, vote Republican. If you do not vote Democrat.
If THAT is the question in November 2006, this becomes a tidal wave election for Democrats.
More on the flip.
Greg Mitchell chides the Nation's editorial boards on their Iraq wishwashiness:
Anyone who hoped that the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq would inspire the country's leading newspapers to finally editorialize for a radical change in the White House's war policy has to be disappointed, again. From this evidence, the editorial boards of The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, the Knight Ridder collective and others appear to be as clueless about what to do as are Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld.
Reading the editorials, which mainly call for more of the same, puts you in a time warp: They could have been, perhaps were, written one year ago, maybe two. There's always a "turning point" to count on, from the transfer of power to the coming this-time-we-mean-it-we-are- really-forming-a-unity-government.
. . . As with their news coverage, the editorials are often harshly critical of the war and the administration. They inevitably say the right things. Yet, after all that, they claim, despite no real evidence, that things will only get worse if we started even a very slow pullout or, gosh-- after three years with no end in sight--set some kind of timetable for same.
The New York Times, for example, cogently lays out everything that has gone criminally wrong, with little hope for improvement, but concludes with this ringing call for...what? "The Iraq debacle ought to serve as a humbling lesson for future generations of American leaders -- although, if our leaders were capable of being humbled, they could have simply looked back to Vietnam," the Times declares. "For the present, our goal must be to minimize the damage, through the urgent diplomacy of the current ambassador and forceful reminders that American forces are not prepared to remain for one day in a country whose leaders prefer civil war to peaceful compromise."
Urgent diplomacy and forceful reminders: In other words, leave it to the incompetent gangs in Washington and Baghdad that the editorial has just eviscerated.
Bingo Greg! These bums can not get it done. There's the Dem message. See, Greg realizes that there is NO solution for Iraq. We're truly fucked. But it is not an easy thing to say or write in this New McCarthyite nation. And it is not an electoral winner right NOW. Hang Iraq around Bush and the Rubber Stamp Republicans. Don't buy the nonsense that Dems must have a plan. Let's Throw the Bums Out first.
Greg's citation to McClatchy also provides an important cue:
And what of Knight Ridder's likely new owner, McClatchy? That chain's Caliifornia papers offered their own pointless assessment: "Bush has painted himself and this country into a dangerous corner from which no exit is in sight, save more years of bloodshed and misery in Iraq on the one hand or, on the other, a hasty U.S. departure that would dishonor America and leave Iraqis to cope with the tragedy visited upon them. It's been a long three years. How many more await?"
Update [2006-3-19 14:21:33 by Armando]: For Dem timing on Iraq "proposals" see this:
We helped make this mess; we have a moral obligation to try to leave Iraq in one piece. It is not an endless obligation, though. By the summer, it should be apparent whether Iraqi leaders can form a unity government that shuns violence.”
Let's be honest, everyone knows Iraq is a disaster. This is all pretend. If we were serious about even HOPING for a success, the newspapers and Republicans and everyone would be caling for the following - the insertion of hundreds of thousands of additional American troops into Iraq, the disbanding of the Iraq government and the reimposition of U.S. rule in Iraq, a call for UN control of the Iraqi political process, the handover of Iraqi reconstruction to multinational coalitions with the express exclusion of U.S. companies from the process, etc.
In short, a do over. But that won't work either. So this is just a kabuki dance until the political will is found in the nation to "declare victory" and get out. Bush and the Republicans can not do it. It must be the Democrats who do it. How can Dems do it? By winning the next election.
So the most important thing Dems can do about Iraq is not propose any particular policy for it - Dem proposals are irrelevant now - it is win in 2006 and then change the policy to getting out.