When we fight back against the Republicans on an issue of colossal importance like the new Torture Bill, I often hear from people that we shouldn't do it because "we have to win" politically. To which I want to scream - No shit, Sherlock!
Really, you wanted to win? I never thought of that. I thought losing might be an excellent strategy. Of cooouuurrrssee we want to win. The question is -- how?
I don't want to set up one straw man to knock down another, so let me try to be as fair as possible to the people on the other side. They genuinely believe that if we fight on some issues and we lose, it will look bad, especially if we know we're not united before we start the fight. They're also worried that on national security issues the Republicans currently have an advantage, whether that is justified or not. And you don't want to change the topic to one where you are at a disadvantage. We have to the Congress back first, and then we can be more effective.
Those seem like reasonable calculations in the short term. But in the long term, they have devastating consequences. Because we never force a fight, we become convinced that we can't win a fight and then we lose members because they are worried we will lose - and voila, we have dissension before we even start.
And even more importantly, we send out the malodorous air of weakness to the voters. They can smell fright from a mile away. It reeks. When they get in that voting booth, who are they going to vote for - the weakling who can't even stand up for himself or the man who whipped them into shape and promises to do the same to our enemies?
On the other hand, if you fight all the time, you fight hard, you fight sloppy, you fight clean, you fight with conviction - you become a fighter. And then people get scared of you! They know to not even nominate a guy like Sam Alito because he won't have a chance. You'll rip him apart in the hearings.
Yes, you might screw up a couple of things along the way, but in the end, you send the message. We are strong and we will not back down under any circumstances. We are fighters!
We will fight to protect the United States, we will fight to protect the constitution, we will fight for our laws, we will fight for our values, we will fight for you and your family, we will fight for morality and we will fight to keep you safe and America proud.
That's how you win.
This is how you lose (as reported in Salon):
But Leahy was clearly frustrated by the white-flag mood among some Senate Democrats. As he said in an interview, "In my own caucus, people say, 'We can't oppose this, look what happened to Max Cleland.'" (A Vietnam veteran confined to a wheelchair because of war wounds, Cleland, a Georgia senator, was defeated by GOP attacks ads in 2002 because he had supported a Democratic filibuster delaying the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security). Leahy recounted that his weak-kneed Democratic colleagues also argue, "'We have to go along with it because we'll never be able to explain it back home.'"
This is a list of losers who don't have the stomach for the fight:
Carper (Del.), Johnson (S.D.), Landrieu (La.), Lautenberg (N.J.), Lieberman (Conn.), Menendez (N.J), Pryor (Ark.), Rockefeller (W. Va.), Salazar (Co.), Stabenow (Mich.), Nelson (Fla.), Nelson (Neb.)
I only mention Democratic senators here because these are the people who could have stopped The Torture Bill today if they stayed united and filibustered it - but they chose not to fight. They chose to lose.
Believe me, if this was the first time, I wouldn't be this angry. But I've already lived through the confirmations of Alberto Gonzales, Condoleezza Rice, General Michael Hayden, John Roberts, Sam Alito and all of the other justices and nominees that have sailed on through as the Democrats kept their powder dry.
And through all of these losses, I have been told that "we have to win." I'm going to put that down in the ironic category. As long as we don't root out this loser mentality that the Republicans will beat us up if we dare to take them on, we will never win first.
Even if the Democrats manage to take one of the Houses of Congress this election because of historic mistakes by the Republicans (and then they'll be all proud as if they earned it - this is the worst administration in history, you should be wiping the floors with them), you think they're going to stand up then?
I'm not so sure. I know there are genuine fighters on the Democratic side. I know a majority of the party voted the right way on this torture bill. I know they are infinitely better than the Republicans who don't just assent to the idea of torture and secret detentions, they relish it.
My guess is that people like Henry Waxman, John Conyers and Louise Slaughter are going to take the fight to these guys. But I am not at all sure the rest of the party will follow. I can see it now - you don't want to seem too partisan by doing hearings before the 2008 election, remember we have to win in 2008 ...