If Dems Give Inches on Iraq, GOP May Take Miles--Into Tehran

There is nothing I would love better than to wake up in the morning and have nice things to say about the Democratic Leadership. I mean that--really, I do. I would love to read the news, read the blogs, and give a congratulatory pat on the back those we progressives worked so hard to elect and represent the interests of justice, fairness, and the reality-based community

But I can't. I find myself once again astounded at the cowardice and/or cluelessness (take your pick) of the Democratic leadership and their braindead messaging teams.

As I write this, two extremely important and confluent events are occurring side-by-side in real time. On the one hand, both Durbin and Reid appear set to cower before lame-duck president George Bush and his soon-to-be-shrinking Republican minority in Congress and grant them an additional $200 billion on top of the $120 billion of the People's Money already appropriated for the Iraq fiasco. On the other, serious rumors are abounding from various sources that there is a coordinated effort about to be pushed for an attack on Iran after Labor Day--which is, as Andy Card reminded us, when new products like a new war are to be launched.

That the Democratic Leadership does not understand or pretends not to understand the close connection between these two events is both astonishing as a political observer and infuriating as a progresive American. One need not believe that the supplemental money will be directly used an assault on Iran--though Gates' surprise at hearing about the extra $50 billion is extremely disturbing--to understand that the Bush Administration's success in getting its way on Iraq will be directly proportional to Dick Cheney's success in staging a successful push for an attack on Iran.

It's very simple: if Democrats bow to Bush now continuing our Occupation of Iraq and running roughshod over the will of both the American and Iraqi people even in the face of unequivocal poll numbers and insurmountable evidence of failure, corruption, incompetence and treachery, there will be no way for us to oppose Cheney on the much murkier and less obvious question of Iran. If Democratic foreign policy is to be waged on the basis of fear of Republican accusations of "weakness" on an issue as clear and easy as Iraq, how much more difficult will it be to break that pattern when it comes to deciding how to proceed in Iran? As long as the Democrats refuse to use the power of the purse or challenge/overtun the 2002 AUMF when it comes to Iraq, how will they propose to do when it comes to Iran? With impeachment "off the table", what hope can we have of even distracting, much less threatening or stopping, Dick Cheney from his own stated goals?

The Democratic Leadership believes that it can continue to give the Bush everything it wants on Iraq while pretending to stand its ground enough to keep Democratic voters motivated. The Democratic Leadership believes that it cannot safely politically achieve a change in Iraq policy until George Bush leaves office. The Democratic Leadership believes that if it does nothing to stop the Occupation until 2009, the election will be about Republican failures--whereas, if the Democrats do step up to the plate, the election will be about Democrats stabbing our soldiers in the back. The Democratic Leadership does not understand that more is at stake in Iraq than just Iraq--and that failure to stand up on Iraq will have disastrous consequences that their apparently small minds still do not understand.

Unlike many in the progresive blogs, I have not stood up and screamed that the sky is falling every time rumors came along of a war with Iran. I was skeptical when Sy Hersh was claiming an imminent attack back in 2006, and my skepticism proved to have been well-founded. Now, however, there is more reason for concern about a strike on Iran than ever before--the primary being that a cornered animal has no choice left but to attack. Beyond the recent rumors and the stationing of carriers at strategic points in gulf, the circumstantial reasons for suspecting an imminent attack are numerous:

• The "surge" is failing--and will continue to fail whether or not the Administration receives the supplementals it is requesting. The need to blame an external enemy for this failure will only grow stronger over time.



• The economy is teetering on the brink of a collapsing asset bubble in the midst of a credit crunch, and the heroic efforts on the part of the Fed and major banking institutions to stem the tide of worried investors will only last so long. There is nothing like a new war to stimulate an economy and take the minds of American people off of economic uncertainty.



• Republican hopes for 2008 are in a tailspin. Now that God, Guns and Gays don't quite have the same effect that they used to, the GOP is turning to increasingly desperate dirty tricks to attempt to maintain power. With Independents, Hispanics and Young Voters--three of most rapidly growing demographic segments in America--moving steadily away from the GOP, they will need to do something drastic to attempt to scare the American people into somehow voting for them again. There is nothing to do that like an exciting new war against a supposedly dangerous new enemy.



• Nearly every Republican candidate refused to rule out pre-emptively using nuclear weapons on Iran to prevent Ahmadinejad from getting his hands on nuclear weapons. More than an astonishing deficit of irony, it was a clear indicator of where the Republican Brand stands on the issue of attacking Iran: sooner rather than later, and as forcefully as possible



• The Religious Right is all but completely deflated in the wake of the scandals surrounding Foley, Vitter, Craig, Gannon, and the like. Larry Flynt supposedly has his hands on 30 others as well, whose names he will be leaking in a slow-drip fashion. Without a strong turnout from the Religious Right, the GOP doesn't stand a chance. Given the current state of things, the only thing that could motivate the Christianists at this point is another all-out crusading war against a Muslim nation.

Even if all of these pieces of direct evidence, rumors and circumstantial fears about an Iran attack turn out to be little more than hot air, it must be conceded that given what we know now, the danger of a last-ditch Republican assault on Iran cannot be discounted by any rational observer.

Give the GOP its inch on Iraq, and it will take a mile--quite possibly into Tehran. By allowing Bush to do what he wants on Iraq, the Democratic Leadership believes it is giving the GOP the rope with which to hang itself, at the expense of the lives a few thousand more U.S. soldiers and countless more Iraqis. That is a not only an immoral gamble, but a foolish one: for the rope that the Dems give the GOP will not be used to hang just the GOP, but rather will be used to hang all of us in one way or another.

The time for courage is now--before it is too late.

Reminder to Harry Reid: Joe Lieberman is NOT a Democrat

I cannot believe that circumstances have forced me to write this diary in the middle of my crazy work schedule (more on which, and why i've been absent for a while, in a diary later this week--I promise!), but here goes...

Apparently, Senator Reid has seen fit to give the Democratic weekly radio address to Joe Lieberman.  I didn't believe it when Markos posted it on the FP at DailyKos.  I still can't believe it as I type this.

Apparently, a little history lesson is in order for our Democratic Leadership.  Let me say it loud and clear.

Joe Lieberman is NOT a Democrat.  Joe Lieberman caucuses with Democrats.  Joe's position toward the party is what biologists call parasitic symbiosis: he attaches remora-like onto the Dems because we need him (temporarily), doing longterm damage to the host.  In this specific case, he is most like this revolting creature: a worm that slowly eats at the tongue of its host fish, eventually replacing the fish's tongue with itself.

Joe Lieberman, you see, stopped being a Democrat when he refused to obey the dictates of the Democratic primary.  He is now officially a "CfL", which best as I can tell translates roughly to either "chloroform" or "kerfuffle."  Not that he can really claim a home there, either, since the takeover of his joke of a party by those who are officially on the Democratic Anti-Parasite platform.

Having Joe Lieberman give the Democratic address is to the nation is, well, like having parasite replace your tongue and then proceed to speak for you, as if it gave a damn either about you or about anything else in the big wide political sea except itself.  You stand to gain absolutely nothing by doing it--and the parasite, despite its threats, wouldn't ever actually dare to try its luck in the shark-infested waters of the Republican opposition.  Because let's be honest: nobody likes a parasite--unless, of course, they have serious self-esteem issues.  Perhaps our leadership needs a group hug.

But since we don't have time for group hugs or lengthy therapy sessions in our supposedly "Mommy Party", allow me to make it clear in advance.

Joe Lieberman is not a Democrat.  Let me repeat that.  Joe Lieberman is not a Democrat.

Think I'm being unfair?  Think I'm singling Joe out for his position on Iraq?  Hardly.

To the best of my knowledge and every google search I could come up with, Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has never given the Democratic weekly address.  That doesn't surprise me, of course.  You know why?  Because Bernie Sanders, while a progressive champion, isn't officially a Democrat!  He's a Socialist--and I'm sure our very careful "Leadership" has seen to it never to have a "Socialist" be the tongue of the Democratic Party.  So why is Mr. Chloroform okay?  What's the difference? 

Perhaps we should consider allowing Mr. Nader to give the next address--after all, he's just as much a Democrat as Joe is--and has sucked just about as much life out of the party in the process.

Meanwhile, last I checked, the GOP has never allowed anyone from the Libertarian Party, the Constitution Party or the Natural Law Party to give their national radio address.  Their leadership obviously has either 1) superior brains, 2) superior common sense, or 3) superior moral fiber than our leadership, which will apparently sell itself out to parasitic vermin faster than a five-dollar whore.  Since #3 is not an option (it's impossible to divide by zero, after all), it must be a failure of common sense.

So perhaps those of us with a little more common sense--those of us who would like to speak with our own tongues, for a change--might want to beat a little bit of that common sense into Senator Reid.

His contact info is below.  Be polite, but be firm: you can't bestow moral or intellectual clarity on anyone if you sound like a firebreathing lunatic.  But do be candid.  Because it really comes down to one simple question: are you pro-Parasite, or anti-Parasite?

Email form here:

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Apologies to DailyKos and to Senator Reid

[N.B.: This is a cross-post from a DailyKos piece--but it can also as an apology to readers of this, my personal blog, as well...]

Yesterday I wrote a http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/24/15483/8428">recommended diary urging Majority Leader Reid to call the GOP bluff on their vote to deny cloture on the stand-alone minimum wage bill. With a good deal of support from this community, I challenged Senator Reid to force the Republicans to conduct a full-on, old-school Strom-Thurmond-style "read-the-phone-book" filibuster on the minimum wage bill. I argued that such an outcome would be a political coup for Democrats, even if the GOP gummed up the Senate works for an entire month or more.
Well, I was wrong--not, I believe, in the spirit of what I wrote, but because what I was urging is literally impossible according to Senate rules.
I was not aware of that when I wrote the diary--and judging from the number of recommenders who supported my position without argument, it appears that many of us need a little bit of education about the filibuster. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Big Tent Democrat to educate me (and a little bit of research on my own), I have realized where I went wrong and would like to offer my humble apologies to DailyKos and to Senator Reid.

The reason I was in error is simple: if there are enough minority votes to deny cloture, an old-school filibuster is unnecessary. Cloture (an end to debate) MUST take place before voting on a bill can begin. No ifs, ands or buts about it.
Thus, even if Harry Reid schedules nothing but debate on the stand-alone minimum wage bill for the entire day, no Republicans even need show up to debate or speechify. All they have to do is come back down to the Senate floor to vote against cloture when the cloture motion comes up. As BTD correctly pointed out, failure to do any other business in the Senate would amount to obstruction, ironically, by the Democratic Majority rather than the Republican Minority.
But if that's the case, one might ask, what were Strom Thurmond's filibusters all about? Why were they necessary then, and unnecessary now?
Good question. It's the same question I asked BTD.
The answer is twofold: 1) the Senate rules have been amended since Strom Thurmond's famous filibusters. But more important is reason number two: Strom Thurmond was filibustering the cloture vote--not the bill itself. The Senate had the votes for cloture (under its rules at the time), so Strom had to resort to lengthy speechifying on the Senate floor.
Want to learn a little more? Here's Shad Satterthwaite at ThisNation.com:

The House of Representatives has a Rules Committee that places a limit on debate when a bill goes to the floor. The Senate has no such committee. As a result, a bill is informally scheduled to come up on the Senate floor where debate can be endless. A filibuster occurs when a Senator engaged in debate refuses to yield the floor and thus prevents a roll call vote from taking place. The image of a Senator standing his ground on the Senate floor is epitomized by Jimmy Stewart with his performance in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Filibusters provide a minority of Senators a way to make their voices heard....
A filibuster can take place at several stages during the legislative process in the Senate. Before a bill is even introduced, a senator can place an anonymous hold on a bill through the majority or minority leaders. A hold is simply a threat to stage a filibuster if the bill comes up for a vote. A motion to bring up a bill can be filibustered. Amendments to a bill can be filibustered. Appointments to conference committees with House members to consider the bill can be filibustered. Conference committee reports on the bill can be filibustered.

Note what it did NOT say could be filibustered, however: the actual bill on the floor itself. Doesn't happen. Never has happened. You can filibuster amendments. You can filibuster the cloture vote. You can filibuster before it's introduced. But if you have the votes to deny cloture, you deny cloture. End of story.

Thus, if the minority has the votes to deny cloture, they can essentially kill the bill until they are given the compromise, tit-for-tat legislation they demand. If they believe that the American people don't want the bill being proffered by the Majority, they can literally refuse to EVER allow cloture on the bill--and the bill dies.

As BTD points out, that is why party discipline is so terribly important when you are the minority. The Dems, for example, should have had the votes to permanently deny cloture on the Medicare bill or the Bankruptcy Bill. But because we lacked party discipline from certain key members, we failed to deny cloture. Unfortunately, with regard to the minimum wage, the GOP has had greater party discipline than we have had in recent years.
However, the GOP knows that killing the minimum wage bill permanently would be politically disastrous, so they'll force a concession or two on tax breaks for Hiltons for allowing it to go to the President's desk. Disgusting? Yes. Surprising? No.

The key upshot? If we want not to be put in this position again, let's get some more Democratic Senators elected so we can get cloture more easily.
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And there you have it. I was wrong; I unintentionally misled the community; I mistakenly impugned Harry Reid's courage.

Please accept my apologies. It is my hope, however, that we have all learned something about Senate workings in the process, and thus that some good can have come from the diary.

Cheers, and let's move on to the next fight.