There are Democrats on Capitol Hill who seem downright relieved that it may be beyond them to stop the troop escalation proposed by President Bush.
"Bush wants to do this because he's worried about his legacy, and Democrats are afraid that if we stopped him from doing it, we'd get blamed for losing the war,'' one Congressional aide summed up. "It's sad, really.'' You think?
Here is the thing: Of course Democrats will be blamed, whenever we pull out of Iraq, for undermining the effort from the start with their general bad attitude, or something to that effect. But couldn't we worry about the soldiers first and the blame later?
Nor should we assume that if it's a bad move, it must be good politics. Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the AP that, ''The Democrats may control Congress but they can't block the president this time without potentially being accused of losing the war. I think an awful lot of this is staging for the next time,'' the 2008 presidential election in particular. Yes, it is. And never have I heard such a compelling argument for sitting out an election.
While Joe Lieberman may be the only Democrat on the Hill who actually supports the so-called surge - if the president knew of any others, he surely would have mentioned them in his speech, too - the Democrats are in their own way as divided as the Republicans, bisected between those content to tut-tut and let it go at that, and those willing to at least try and take action. (Ted Kennedy, Jack Murtha, Ted Kennedy, and so on. There is still lots of room at the front.)
Murtha has proposed linking additional funding to improved readiness for our over-extended troops, and his defense subcommittee will begin hearings on January 17. Kennedy wants to require Congressional approval for any funding to be used for an escalation, and Senator Russ Feingold, too, is pressing the issue in concrete terms. At this morning's Foreign Relations Committee hearing, he said, "I have consistently called for the redeployment of our military from Iraq, but now Congress must use its main power - the power of the purse - to put an end to our involvement in this disastrous war. Over the next several weeks, I - and I hope the rest of my colleagues - will take a hard look at just how we should do that.''
So far at least, the Democratic leadership in the Senate is taking a more cautious approach. And Illinois Senator Dick Durbin's initial response on behalf of the Democratic Party - that we shouldn't send more troops into a civil war because we have already given these Iraqis the world on a string - was nearly as baffling as the president's assertion that if we pulled out we'd be there longer. (Yes, he did say that.) If I had to guess, I'd say that Iraqis had long since given up on the idea that we were their 911.