"Cynical Democrats INDIFFERENT to suffering of US troops & Iraq civilians? You Bet!" - Thomas de Zengotita, contributing editor, Harper's magazine, at HuffingtonPost.com)
ACTUALLY - we are not entirely unsypathetic with this Democratic leadership example of "REAL POLITIK" in action, of the sort that Henry Kissinger was famous for. OUR BIGGER COMPLAINT is not that the volunteer troops in Iraq are being used as window dressing by the ghoulishly incompetent, corrupt, and increasingly dictatorial Bush administration, but that the Democratic leadership IS ALSO "GOING SOFT" on the Bush administration here in America and in Washington -
- GIVING CHENEY A FREE PASS for his HALLIBURTON stock-options!
- GIVING BUSH a FREE PASS for having put an UNQUALIFIED PARTY HACK with NO DISASTER RELIEF EXPERIENCE - Mike Brown - in charge of FEMA before the Katrina hurricane hit the Gulf Coast...
- GIVING KARL ROVE a FREE PASS for his role in CIA-OUTING-gate, the OBSTRUCTION of JUSTICE that followed first reports of that scandal, and then giving Karl Rove a SECOND FREE PASS for his role in US ATTORNEY PURGE-gate, aka "the use of vast US criminal justice powers to CRIMINALIZE Democratic vote-registration activists, as if this were Stalin's Russia, Hitler's Germany, or the Segregation-era Deep South (USA)!
- GIVING Alberto Gonzales a FREE PASS for LYING to Congress and the American public - NO ONE passes Law School and the Bar Exam, "FORGETTING" important meetings they held mere months earlier.
- Just as the Democratic Senate GAVE the Jeb Bush/Katherine Harris campaign a FREE PASS for MASSIVE VOTER DISENFRANCHISEMENT in Florida in 2000 (Dem Senate Leadership REFUSING to sign-on to the Black Congressional Caucus demands for a simple Congressional investigation into those massive trashed-votes problems.)
- Just as the Congressional Democrats ALLOWED the Bush administation to make the 9-11 Commission into a paper circus, Mr. Bush's CONTEMPTOUS REFUSAL to appear under oath with the dignity his massive failures preceeding 9-11 should have demanded.
(And it was only because of the relentless efforts of the 9-11 widows, NOT the Democratic leadership, that there was a 9-11 Commission at all.)
Clearly, the Democratic "LEADERSHIP" are NOT LEADING on these and other issues, but are FOLLOWERS - FOLLOWERS of the inside-the-beltway DC "CONVENTIONAL WISDOM."
We remind - the DC "CONVENTIONAL WISDOM" as spouted by the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, and other organizations (much less the right-wing 'news' sources Washington Times, Fox 'news', and Wall St. Journal) is NOTHING MORE THAN THE KARL ROVE/RUSH LIMBAUGH TALKING POINTS, given a brief polish and spin by the David Broders, George Wills, and other pooh-bah millionaires of the DC punditocracy class.
IT IS LONG PAST TIME that the Democratic "leadership" STOPPED TAKING ITS MARCHING ORDERS and leadership cues FROM RUSH LIMBAUGH, KARL ROVE, and the DC punditocracy class!
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House Democrats Cave on War Funding? Basic Principles of Judo
by Thomas De Zengotita
May 21, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-de-zengotita/house-democrats-cave-on-w_b_49093.html
Ok, there they all were this evening, looking Memorial Day in the eye, and sending Bush his war funding without timelines. A bill full of language authored by John Warner, as a matter of fact. But one that also included a rise in the minimum wage and hurricane relief. There they were: Pelosi, Hoyer, Obey, Emanuel.
CAVING.
But look, these people aren't stupid. They know what they're doing. The real issue is does the anti-war progressive base know what it is doing? Is it focused on making sure that Democrats win the White House in '08 and keep control of both houses of Congress? Or is it focused on a genuinely radical anti-corporate, anti-imperial, anti-globalization long term agenda for which the fate of Democrats in '08 is just an incidental tactical issue?
Someday I'll sketch out what the strategy and tactics should be for the genuine radicals. But for those progressives who want to ensure a Democratic sweep in '08, here's the deal. Judo is all about falling backwards after pretending to shove forward. Judo is all about flipping the opponent by virtue of his own weight as he leans into the emptiness of your caving.
What House Democrats are trying to guarantee is this: the Iraq war belongs to Bush and the Republican Party now -- and so it must when the election of 2008 rolls around. That's what they want to guarantee above all else.
Cynical? Indifferent to the suffering of US troops and Iraqi civilians?
You bet.
Welcome to the political world of grown-ups who hold office and have institutional responsibility.
Myself, I'm Peter Pan...
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