A week or so ago I wrote a diary who's thrust was Sen. Kerry's and Sen. Feingold's amendment calling for a date certain for withdrawal of troops from Iraq was a foolish tactical move which will give an advantage to the Bush administration and GOP Congress in the mid-term elections. I also stated that Kerry's amendment took all the attention from a Sen. Levin/Reid amendment which also supported withdrawal but with no date certain and a more reasoned approach to the same goal which had broad Democratic support. I was castigated as a Troll, a wimp, as abandoning Democratic principles, a traitor and tacticly completely off-base...
Some DailyKos members made many arguments claiming I didn't have a clue what I was talking about, that Kerry was being principled and strong.
The [updated]highly energetic critisism I recieved from DKos members telling me how wrong I was were themselves wrong IMHO then and are wrong now. The proof is in the same polls they used to bolster their argument.Take a look at the most recent slipping poll numbers for Democrats handling of the war on terror and the war in Iraq.
Democrats held a double-digit advantage in the polls on the war on Iraq and Bush was well below 50% support for his handling of the war on terror. How about now? In one week after the foolish grandstanding of a few Democrats trying to gain political advantage for their OWN Presidential aspirations (Kerry and Feingold) and many from this web-space and other blogs for the progressive left applauding them for doing so we can see the American people are nervous about this approach. They also slow-piched an issue that may let the GOP hit it out of the park!
We can see the momentum on this issue and others related to National Security starting to swing against us. Why is this? Why is postulating about withdrawal, which is certainly where the American people seemed to be leaning according to many polls, causing them to drift towards the Republicans position, especially when they have recently gotten more hawkish in support of the Bush "stay the course" approach?
Because tactics in politics matter! Because being right isn't always enough as the last election proved beyond a doubt. You have to be smart in politics which the Republicans have been and the Democrats haven't!
In politics you have to be strategic (long term)as well as tactical(short term) and that requires knowing when to stand up and when to shut up! When will we learn the difference?
People are nervous about how the Democrats will handle this issue and with all the vacsilating the dems have been doing, in-fighting about the withdrawal and when and how we should do so make this stance look like a political maneuver as opposed to a principled one.
We should be kicking the shit out of the GOP on this issue but instead we are losing ground on an issue the general public mainly agrees with us on! Why? Because in politics HOW and WHEN you make your stand is almost as important as WHAT you're standing for.
Democrats here and in the country need to shut up when opening their mouth will hurt our cause instead of helping it. Even if you think that's a cynical approach it is in fact the correct one. Democrats will lose the mid-term elections and thus delay the time when our sons and daughters come home from Iraq if we use our hearts instead of our heads in making these determinations as to when to make our stand.
I am opening myself up again to many attacks and "troll" accusations here on DKos but I don't care...I want us to win and whether you like it or not, winning in politics is ALL THAT MATTERS because when you're in the minority you are critically and effectively limited in doing anything to move the Progressive agenda forward.
So again, I say SHUT UP for now about withdrawing from Iraq with a date announced and certain or you hurt the effort to get us out of the war even if that's not your intention.
Be Smart, the time will come when we have our opportunity to make THIS the issue but in the meantime we have taken all the focus off the blundering, fragmented GOP and ineptitude of the Bush/GOP approach to governing the country and prosecuting the war.
Like the line from "The Graduate" fellow Democrats ,I have one word for you....Tactics!