The Democratic leadership blew this one in a huge way. Hiding under the bed on this was just unbelievably stupid and reinforced the worst stereotypes of Dems as weak and standing for nothing.
What hurts the most is not that we lost the Geneva Conventions battle, it's that we lost it because our leaders froze up and wet themselves, even though we wanted them to fight and would have supported them to the hilt if they had.
I don't think there's anything more to say by way of a post mortem.
Looking forward, it's hugely important that Democrats win back the House, at a minimum. Even when the leadership gets rolled in the most embarassing way, rank and file Democrats need to stay motivated to win this thing. There are massive differences between Democrats and Republicans. For starters, Republicans want to stay in Iraq, bomb Iran and transform America into a police state.
Showing posts with label Harry Reid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harry Reid. Show all posts
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Heckuva Job, Harry
This is horrible.
The substance of the Geneva Conventions "compromise" is going to be the stuff of nightmares. And good luck to the Dem leadership selling this as an instance of Rubber Stamp Republicans caving and going along with Bush!
By sitting on the sidelines throughout this whole piece of Kabuki, our national Dem pols let the GOP frame crystalize: this was Courageous Rebel Republicans led by Straight Talking Maverick Saint John McCain standing up to the Bush White House. And the story isn't going to come out "McCain Caved"... it's going to be "Fearless Saint McCain Stared Bush Down".
Just yesterday, Harry Reid told the AP that the Dem leadership was "sitting on the sidelines watching the GOP catfights." Having called the debate about whether Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions should be edited by Bush a "catfight", how is our Dem leadership now supposed to argue that McCain caved on a matter of supreme importance? Having decided to sit on the sidelines as if this was just all a process story about intra-GOP squabbling, they just can't do it. Can they argue that the whole debate was phony, that this was all Kabuki? Well, they could have argued that... LAST WEEK! But that ship has sailed.
I want the Dems to win the House back so badly it physically hurts. Judging by the lunacy coming out of the White House and the op-ed pages of our major newspapers, it looks like winning the House back is literally the only way to prevent a new war with Iran, let alone wind down the one in Iraq. But the Dem leadership has got to shake off this stupor they're in and get in the game.
The war for control of the House isn't lost -- far from it. The odds are we'll win. But there's no way we should be saying "Heckuva job, Brownie" to Reid, Pelosi and Emmanuel for this. By hiding under the bed and letting the GOP run this play unopposed, they blew this battle BIGTIME.
The substance of the Geneva Conventions "compromise" is going to be the stuff of nightmares. And good luck to the Dem leadership selling this as an instance of Rubber Stamp Republicans caving and going along with Bush!
By sitting on the sidelines throughout this whole piece of Kabuki, our national Dem pols let the GOP frame crystalize: this was Courageous Rebel Republicans led by Straight Talking Maverick Saint John McCain standing up to the Bush White House. And the story isn't going to come out "McCain Caved"... it's going to be "Fearless Saint McCain Stared Bush Down".
Just yesterday, Harry Reid told the AP that the Dem leadership was "sitting on the sidelines watching the GOP catfights." Having called the debate about whether Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions should be edited by Bush a "catfight", how is our Dem leadership now supposed to argue that McCain caved on a matter of supreme importance? Having decided to sit on the sidelines as if this was just all a process story about intra-GOP squabbling, they just can't do it. Can they argue that the whole debate was phony, that this was all Kabuki? Well, they could have argued that... LAST WEEK! But that ship has sailed.
I want the Dems to win the House back so badly it physically hurts. Judging by the lunacy coming out of the White House and the op-ed pages of our major newspapers, it looks like winning the House back is literally the only way to prevent a new war with Iran, let alone wind down the one in Iraq. But the Dem leadership has got to shake off this stupor they're in and get in the game.
The war for control of the House isn't lost -- far from it. The odds are we'll win. But there's no way we should be saying "Heckuva job, Brownie" to Reid, Pelosi and Emmanuel for this. By hiding under the bed and letting the GOP run this play unopposed, they blew this battle BIGTIME.
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