Democrats Need To Admit They Have A Problem: They Are Addicted to Backing Down

"Mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support."

That is how, according to the Washington Post, officials present characterized the reaction of lawmakers, including Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi and Jane Harman, when they were briefed in 2002 about waterboarding and other severe interrogation techniques being employed by the CIA.

But it could just as well be the slogan of the Democrats for much of the last six-plus years -- especially on Iraq.

It's no wonder Democrats have already decided to capitulate on the war funding bill coming before Congress next week. As recently as three weeks ago, Speaker Pelosi said there would be no more votes on Iraq funding this year (she said the same thing -- both about no votes this year and no votes in '08 without a withdrawal date -- when I interviewed her in October), and last month Sen. Chuck Schumer thundered, "The days of a free lunch are over."

Well, over in the same way that U.S. state-sanctioned torture is over. Which is to say, not so much.

Why can't the Democrats do anything about it? According to Jim Manley, spokesman for Harry Reid: "Republicans, Republicans, Republicans. The real problem here is the president and his Republican backers" who have "staked out an increasingly hard-lined position."

Republicans taking a hard-line position? Who could've have thunk it? The question for Reid and Pelosi is this: why would the Republicans not be taking increasingly hard-line positions when Democratic opposition to the war -- and the other excesses of the Bush administration -- has been so consistently tepid?

That's why the Washington Post piece about senior Democrats being briefed about waterboarding and other torture practices is both shocking and not shocking.

It's shocking that any American lawmaker -- of either party -- would go along with state-sanctioned torture. But it's not shocking when you realize it's just part of a long line of Democratic "acquiescence." From the outright support of the war authorization (sorry, Hillary, we all know what the bill was about) to the latest surrender on war funding, Republicans know Democrats will bluster...and then cave. So of course they're taking "increasingly hard-lined positions."

According to the Post, when briefed in 2002 about the torture going on, "no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said."

But, of course, it's all the fault of "Republicans, Republicans, Republicans."

As Andrew Sullivan notes, "At best, it seems to me, Democratic resistance to these war crimes was anodyne." (For more on what the destroyed interrogation tapes likely would have shown, read this post by Kevin Drum).

Senator Jay Rockefeller, who can't really decide what he knew about the torture and the tapes and their destruction or when he knew it, now says he was "really disturbed by what I was reading and what we grew to know."

And could there be anything more confused and anodyne than the way Democrats ceded the PR war over the surge to the GOP? Would it have been so hard to point out that the ultimate purpose of the surge was not military but creating the conditions for political stability and reconciliation? Can they not be trusted to remember that far back, all the way to January 2007?

And why are the major Democratic presidential candidates standing on the sidelines when it comes to ending the war and zero tolerance for torture? If they don't show bold leadership now, what is to prevent the Republican nominee - -whoever that is -- from walking all over the Democratic nominee -- whoever that is -- the same way the Bush administration is walking all over congressional Democrats now?

If you want to know what that is going to look like watch the tape of Rudy Giuliani on Meet the Press and you'll get a preview. Here he is on whether the NIE finding that Iran has largely abandoned its nuclear program eliminated the option of a pre-emptive military strike:

"No, I, I don't think it does... The option of this government should be that we don't take any options off the table, and we keep the pressure on them. And of course we don't, we don't want to use the military option. It would be dangerous; it would be risky. But I think it would be more dangerous and more risky if Iran did become a nuclear power."

As Steve Benen at TPM says:

"It must be great to work in the communications staff for a Republican presidential campaign -- you don't have to bother to change the talking points based on new information, you just repeat the old lines as if nothing ever changes."

And that's the point. The Republican aren't going to change. If the disastrous foreign policy the U.S. has pursued for seven years is going to change, it's going to have to be because Democrats force it to change.

And they're not going to do that until they break completely with their past "acquiescence, if not outright support" of that foreign policy. It's like AA -- they first need to admit they have a severe problem, do a serious and fearless political inventory, and then commit to making a change.

Memo to Oprah: while you're on the campaign trail, maybe you can facilitate an intervention. How about you and Dr. Phil show up at the next debate and haul the Democratic frontrunners and the Congressional leadership off to spinal rehab?

Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff

Comments

[evahartselftlanguages]

TO: Morris 1030 December 16, 2007

Splendidly and superbly we must remember Christmas and Jesus' Birth. Our leader will have to obey their God when in the
Presidency as Presidents. For God demands this. Thus, we must vote in those who are sincerely telling the truth and who do not violate our trust in them. This keeps a government of people of good character.

It is said that apathy undermines Democracy. Would you vote for Jesus if he were here today? Acquiescence by the people too must stop for good leadership. Eva Hart Christian Army 62-70 670 Eddy St. Sfc 94109

[todbrilliant]

I'm wondering if those lockstepping Dems who fired uckets of vitriol at Nader voters are finally understanding how badly they erred.

[joe6671]

ARIANNA u r absolutely right. The Dems have a problem , they believe in capitulation . Their inspirations r noble but they do not play well politically. The Repubs have ceased a long time ago to to engage in such wishful thinking. Their politics r not good for the USA but they serve their politicians well . When the Dems will begin to understand this one cannot tell.

[ihavenobias]

You're absolutely right Arianna!

The problem is, there are so few people in the media that *openly* agree.

Luckily there is at least one other:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxTF8n-Iee0

[therealredstateblues]

Taking impeachment off the table was the same thing as telling Bush and Cheney there will be no consequnces for their actions past present or future

[therealredstateblues]

This should be called the "spelunking" congress. They have caved more to Bush and the republicans as much as Paulson has caved to the chinese on trade and currency manipulation.

Where were the democrats when they were the minority? why didn't they use the powers that the republican monority has to stop all this nonsense?

[longislandlol]

Shrinking violets; all talk- no action- them dems--

[shengirl]

The Dems are like parents who threaten and bluster their kids-- "This time I MEAN it! No, this time I REALLY mean it! THIS time you've gone too far!"-- and do nothing. The kids soon realize this and tune them out. They know there'll be no consequences. Just like the Repugs are now doing, and who can blame them? I am an Independent but when I hear another threat from Harry Reid, another declaration from Nancy Pelosi, I think yeah, sure, yada yada yada. I'll believe it when I see it. Till then, why don't you all shut up? What a shameful bunch they are.

[lastams]

I realize that Americans are a busy lot and hardly able to spend the time necessary to get an honest take on politics in Washington. Still and all, it should by now be apparent to all that the old definitions of Liberal and Conservative have largely been replaced with agendas and objectives that defy the old labels.
If by Conservative, one supports a small fiscally responsible government and the safe-guarding of personal freedoms, how anyone could refer to this administration as “conservative” is simply beyond me.
As to the term “liberal”, those members of the Democratic Party (yes, you know who you are) who support the big business K-street agenda of outsourcing jobs while importing cheap docile foreign labor,
a health care plan that basically subsidizes the insurance industry, and a bloated Defense and DHS bureaucracy that cannot pass a legally required GAO audit, can hardly be called liberals.
It’s time to take the blinders off, and to do so we need a press that calls a spade a spade and isn’t so mired in convenient 1960’s political definitions.
Note the (dis) approval rating of both Congress and the White House. While the Republicans, in their little black and white way, are pointing to the disapproval of the Democratic controlled Congress as a point in THEIR favor, they simply don’t get that Americans are fed up with the lies and subterfuge of BOTH parities. We are looking for a bit of truth, reality, and God help us, some genuine leadership, amongst our elected representatives.
I am genuinely hoping that a viable third party will emerge though the flotsam and jetsam of this election year. If anything, the extended election season has shown us just how similar the “leadership” of both parties are, and that nothing will change by simply changing the players when all the players are basically on the same team.

[Stevelagain]

Arriana has touched on the FAILURE of the democrats to act. To Act to do just about anything.

Gone are the promises of greater fiscal responsibility as they spend GREATER AMOUNTS.

Gone are the comments of social security and medicare needing fixing, as democrats refuse to even talk about them now let alone form groups to work on fixes. Gone is the talk about out of control boarders as the boarders become theirs and they support out of control boarders.

Gone is the promise of national health care as they refuse to even start a group to work on it.

Gone with the wind, all the false promises. What's left is incompetent, radicalized, pandering leadership of Pelosi and Reid. 2007 is the year of their failure. The public knows they have failed and the "honeymoon" is over.

Democrats need new leadership. I railed against the idea of putting a corrupt Reid in charge of the senate and this crowd supported him because he said the things you wanted to hear. Corruption does matter. Find yourselves a clean leader instead of a corrupt panderer.

[Waitaminute]

I knew the dems along with the republicans, had sold us out after the stolen 2000 election. When not one democratic senator stood up to support their most loyal (43 years at 95%) constiuents.

There is only one way out of this. Because the traitors control the legal system, the msm and the defense.

The only reason this is still happening, is because a certain class of people, have not suffered enough. One thing about greedy people, they never get enough.

So far, this certain class of people still talk about whether the candidate look presidential or not. We're in trouble.

[Waitaminute]

The only thing that'll change this situation, is for the people to physically put the traitors on the streets. They are bought and paid for. And the payoffs and all blackmailable information, are probably on tape.

[gaubladt]

Could it be that the above article is just an attempt to break the ice for Bloomberg as he enters the race?
Remember Bloomberg: Renound for saving city schools, making the trains run on time, and last but not least: treating anti-war demonstrators, & bicyclers, like traitors.
As for the Demo's in congress, Huffpo's "hero", Murtha, led the charge to cave in. He probably planned it years ago.
In the end, the responsibility for torture and war belongs to us, Ms. Huffington included, for not standing up to these fascists: for not shouting our disdain for war and torture; and for not forcing their hand to intern us, or torture us.
Ms. Huffington was not one of the valliant heros for democracy & freedom arrested at the 2004 Republican convention. But, neither was I.
I just think that we could do a lot worse than Pelosi. After all, you could have someone embedded with the Military Industrial Complex, like Murtha, running the House of Representatives. And, that is probably what will happen when you get rid of her.

[angel66]

Too bad Kucinich is so wacky!

[Bob Egan]

Washington, D.C. represents a giant toilet that has stopped up and overflowed! The stench has permeated the whole world!

Time to clean up the whole(both parties) mess!

Lobbyists serve only special interests and should be banned!!

Without a complete clean up we will continue to run around trying to fix one thing just as three more things are taking place!

This administration has so many scandals that it is impossible to follow them all.