Commie Bitch....

It’s Time for Action
Democrats need to do something dramatic, even histrionic, to dispel the perception they are powerless to stop the Iraq War. (they are not powerless they can always cut the money)

Web-Exclusive Commentary
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek
Updated: 3:17 p.m. ET July 20, 2007
July 20, 2007 - The media treated the Senate’s all-night session as a comedy routine, a chance to make jokes about sleepovers and pizza delivery. Everybody knew going in that the Democrats didn’t have the votes to pass an amendment calling for the draw down of troops beginning in 120 days. But the Democrats needed to show they’re at least trying to bring about the change in policy they promised on the campaign trail last year. (so they put on a waste of time and money side show for their base, and the Press)

The operative emotion is anger. (ahh boo hoo) The voters are almost as furious with the Democrats for their inability to end the Iraq War as they are with President Bush for prolonging it. (no mention how they will feel when bombs go off in our streets and a million Iraqi's are killed by the Iranian death squads that will fill the void if we leave to quickly) Democrat Chellie Pingree lost by 16 points when she challenged Maine Republican Susan Collins in 2002. Now Collins, running for re-election in ’08, is on everybody’s endangered list. (good, she's a RINO) After much public agonizing, she became one of the four Republicans this week to break with Bush and vote with the Democrats on the war.

“It’s a different world,” says Pingree, who is running for the House seat in Maine being vacated by Democrat Tom Allen, who’s taking on Collins at much better odds than Pingree had five years ago. “You can’t be liberal enough,” (LOL) Pingree exclaimed at a crowded party in the Washington condo that liberal blogger Ariana Huffington rented for the month of July while her daughter interns with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Until she stepped down in January to return to Maine, Pingree headed Common Cause, a nonpartisan citizens’ lobbying group. Before that she served in the Maine Senate, where she rose to become majority leader. Voters don’t understand why the Democrats can’t work their will, she says, and excusing inaction with a civics lesson about cloture and the limits of power won’t get the party’s leadership off the hook. (the more the party does what it's doing the better the next election will turn out for the Republicans)

Democrats needed to do something dramatic, even histrionic, to dispel the perception they are powerless to stop the war, even if they are. (they are NOT, they can always cut the funding, but they don't want to face the consequences of doing the only CONSTITUTIONAL option they have) They’re keeping the heat on, and that’s a good thing. GOP leader Mitch McConnell, outraged at the sleepover stunt, cited a Zogby poll taken before this week’s Senate action that found voters’ approval for the Democratic Congress has dropped to 14 percent—evidence to McConnell that the Democrats’ strategy is failing. Pollster John Zogby questions this interpretation, saying that Congress never does well no matter who’s in charge, and in post-Katrina America, government institutions are at a low point. Liberals in particular rate this Congress very low because of the war, which is why the least the Senate could do is pull an all-nighter. “I see this not as a stroke of desperation but something they have to do,” Zogby told NEWSWEEK. “They have to keep trying to end the war. They can’t be seen as throwing their arms up in the air and saying it’s impossible, or they’ll get these kind of numbers.” (that statement should raise a red flag, Zogby sounds like he has chosen sides. That wouldn't influence any of his POLS would it?)

By cutting off the debate and pulling the bill, the Democrats denied the Republicans the chance to vote on more moderate amendments that would have given them political cover with voters while doing nothing to end the war. The antiwar wing of the party doesn’t like compromise, so they applauded the decision to put off further action until September. “Now the ball’s in our court,” says Tom Matzzie, Washington director for MoveOn.org, (George Soros) one of several groups organizing antiwar campaigns in the home states of wavering Republicans. Matzzie talks regularly with Vietnam War activist Tom Hayden (Chicago 7) to get his thoughts about how to proceed, and how to avoid pitfalls. Hayden warned that the White House will try to divide the critics, and so Matzzie and others have worked hard to keep Senate Democrats unified. And they’ve countered White House efforts to demonize critics by putting Iraq veterans and military families in the forefront of demonstrations instead of liberal activists.

What we’re seeing is a political campaign to force the president to change policy, and it’s going to take until at least late fall. (and it will still fail) Matzzie says he didn’t expect major defections until September. “We’re ahead of schedule.” When Indiana Republican Richard Lugar spoke out on the Senate floor last month, he could have been reading from Matzzie’s talking points. The reasons Lugar gave for wanting to draw down U.S. troops: lack of political will in Iraq; the stress on the U.S. military and, finally, the domestic political climate. You can’t sustain a war without public approval. What Lugar said was “a big hat tip to everyone and the work we’ve done to create this toxic political environment,” (Lugar should take note of this praise and the fact that he is touting moveon's talking points. I'm sure his conservative constituents enjoy who he is siding with) says Matzzie. Faced with big losses in ’08, (no big gains) Republicans have to choose their survival over sticking with Bush. To get out from under the political heat, more than their vote has to change. The war has to end. (you won't end the WAR by Surrendering in Iraq, all you will do is make us more vulnerable, ya pinko)