Down with Tyranny celebrates Rahm Emanuel's impending departure

from the DCCC, saying it couldn't come soon enough.

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2006/06/bushs-iraq-occupation-and-building.html

BUSH'S IRAQ OCCUPATION AND THE BUILDING DEMOCRATIC VICTORY IN NOVEMBER




Although we haven't broken out the cases of champagne at DWT, you can probably tell that Ken, Adam (and Sadie and Sophie) and myself are all pretty excited about Rahm Emanuel's decision to depart from the DCCC in November. (Had the decision been to depart today, we would all be drunk by now and I wouldn't be writing this morning.) Our disdain for the chairman of the DCCC is multi-faceted, covering a wide range of tactical and strategic decisions he has enforced that have made the Democrats less likely to compete effectively against Republicans in November.

However, many of his devastatingly bad decisions seem to all come from one place: his steadfast determination to keep the Democratic Party and, far worse, Democratic candidates around the country, from taking a clear and unambiguous position against Bush's war and occupation.

Today the well-respected GarinHartYang Research Group released a paper called "The Political Dynamics of the Iraq Debate" that puts the lie to Emanuel's violently aggressive demand (disguised as timidity-- oh please) that antiwar stands will lose the election for Democrats.

The overriding reality that defines the dynamics of Iraq as a political issue is that Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of the way President Bush is handling the war in Iraq. Indeed, one of the key reasons for Republicans’ vulnerability in this year’s mid-term elections is that Americans do not believe that the country will be well-served by having a congressional majority marching lock-step with the President in supporting a “stay the course” approach to the war. The significance of the current debates in Congress is that nearly all Republicans are reinforcing their position as rubber stamps for administration policy, while most Democrats are placing themselves on the record as supporting one version or another of a new direction for U.S. policy.

Based on the most recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey, conducted after the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, only 35% of Americans approve of President Bush’s handling of the situation in Iraq, while 61% disapprove. By aligning themselves so closely with President Bush’s conduct of the war, Republicans who are running for reelection this year clearly are playing the short side of the field.

Current polling also demonstrates that there is broad support for a change of course in our Iraq policy, while the status quo “stay-the-course” position articulated by most Republicans in Congress has become a distinctly minority position in the electorate. On the question of our troop commitment, for example, just 35% believe that we should maintain our current level of troop strength in Iraq “to help secure peace and stability,” while 57% say that it is time for the United States to reduce its troop level. ...

with his family.

whole especially since it seems to boil down to 2 assholes opinion on Iraq.