There is an old joke that Republicans run on what they believe (no matter how racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, or plain stupid) and win. Democrats run on what they think will win elections, and lose. Maybe right now, after the Bush administration's little Vietnam The Sequel dragged the whole GOP by a narrow margin into the doldrums, people won't get this joke. They will by 2008 though. In fact, the 2006 "victory" for Democrats was delivered by Republican voters, not Democrats. It was a vote against Bush and the war; not a vote for Democrats. And the Republicans can clean the neo-cons out to re-secure their white suburban base.... which they will... and they will beat the pants off of the Dems in 2008.
Mark my words.
Three days ago, the most intelligent and decent thing anyone said about the Iraq Occupation on the floor of the House was by Republican John Duncan of East Tennessee.
"If you're going the wrong way on the Interstate," he said, "you get off at the next exit." If I lived in Maryville, and 2008 rolled around with Democratic "exit strategies" and non-binding resolutions, Brother Duncan would get himself a left-wing poll worker.
Now, it seems, what the Democratic Party chiefs are devoting the most attention to is finding ways to quiet down their own left wing. That's why everything except cutting the money for the war has been put on the table. We are awash in bills and resolutions that are Anything-Buts. They don't want to be blamed for the defeat in Iraq, you see, and have that used against them as a stain on their collective manhood (even the women in leadership).
News flash. It's been 32 years since the helicopters were flying off of the embassy roof in Saigon, and there are still people who say that if we'd have just stayed and killed another million people, we could have won that war and salvaged the National Masculinity. You can't make a demagogue stop being what s/he is.
Ticks drink blood. Skunks smell funny. Dogs sniff each others' asses. And demagogues always appeal to our ignorance, fear, and prejudices. Get over it.
I'm headed down in an hour to picket Congressman David Price -- who I am convinced is part eel -- and wondering if the press will cover this... there will be quite a few of us out in the 40-degree weather. They sure as hell are trying to ignore a spate of Congressional office occupations and pickets around the country. From Maine to California to Alabama, these actions are going on, some with civil disobedience... and the press is studiously pretending that no one smells this.
Pretty simple actually. Out now. Cut the funds.
Drop by Fire on the Mountain to read about this shameful white-out of the antiwar movement... yet again, often by Democratic leaning media.
Just to reiterate what we'll be telling our own local invertebrate: We won't vote for people who allow others to continue murder and vandalism in order to get elected... just because "the other guy is worse." You are enabling the other guy.
Have fun moving out of your offices in 2009, you opportunistic reptiles.