David Sirota: What the Democratic Blank Check on Iraq Means

http://www.workingassetsblog.com/2007/05/what_the_democratic_blank_chec.html

Real-world wisdom from outside the beltway.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
What the Democratic Blank Check on Iraq Means

I've been trying to formulate my thoughts on Democrats' capitulation on the Iraq War for some time now. Though it may seem like Democratic leaders' decision this week to try to give President Bush a blank check is sudden, it's not - this is what many of us knew would happen, despite our best efforts to prevent it. Because there is so much going on, I'm going to break my thoughts down in bite-sized snippets in the extended entry. Bottom line - if the Democrats do not vote down the blank check Iraq War supplemental bill they are proposing, they will be complicit in the war, and should expect to feel the consequences. Use Working Assets' tool to contact your lawmaker and tell them to vote against this blank check. Then go read the extended entry.

YOU VOTE FOR IT, YOU OWN IT

In traveling all over the country talking to people as I report my next book, I have long believed Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) was right when in March he said, "The realization is growing that the only way to stop this thing is to use our power." I've talked to politicians who privately tell me they are afraid to "take political ownership" of the war by using their power to end it. Yet, if you can get past the nausea that may overcome you when you hear a politician focus on the politics while people die, it's clear that even on the politics Feingold is right. "If the Democrats don’t use their power, when we’re in the majority in both houses, we’re going to start owning this war," he said back in March. "It is George Bush’s war, but if we don’t get serious we’re going to start owning this war." This is a key political point many politicians are forgetting right now. Bush may have started the war, and may politically "own" the war, but he was elected in 2004 IN SPITE of that. Put another way, he was elected on honest pretenses when it came to the war. Democrats, by contrast, were put into office in 2006 because they promised to end the war. Thus, turning around and becoming complicit in the war arguably gives them even GREATER ownership of the war than Bush, because they are so clearly breaking their word to the country.

STOP WHINING ABOUT BUSH, YOU HAVE RESPONSIBILITY AND EVERYONE KNOWS IT

Various Democrats are doing their best efforts to pretend they have no ability to stop the war, as if they are innocent bystanders. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), for instance, is saying she will vote against the blank check bill, but she won't use her power to actually stop the bill from moving forward - as if she's just a lowly back bencher who has no power.

Similarly, many lawmakers keep saying that it's Bush responsibility - not theirs - to develop a plan to end the war. That may be true - but that doesn't mean lawmakers don't have many different ways to force him to develop a plan. For instance, I've suggested a method of doing so through a non-partisan commission. Another way to do it is through timelines tied to funding. Media zombies may regurgitate laughable right-wing lies about American troops having to run naked and unarmed through the streets of Baghdad should Congress dare to exercise its constitutional power of the purse, but the reality is if Congress simply said funding would be cut off on a certain date, that would force the Bush White House and military commanders to come up with a plan for redeployment.

To sum up - every time a Democrat claims they can't stop the war, they make themselves look stupid. Additionally, every time a Democrat says they are doing everything in their power to stop the war while refusing to use the powers they have they make themselves look like liars. As just one example, the next time you hear a Senator (and in particular, a Senator running for president) say they are using every resource at their disposal to end the war, you ask yourself why you don't see them on the Senate floor right at that moment reading the names of the troops who have been killed and then reading names out of a phone book in an effort to use Old School filibuster tactics to bring Congress to a screeching halt.

more...

is now the Dem's fault. It's jr's war & it's jr's to lose.