Lily-Livered Democrats Lose Game of Chicken

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

By Susan Estrich

Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, calls the language "extremely
weak."

Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, says she is "not likely to
vote for [it]."

MoveOn.org sent an e-mail Wednesday morning to its 3 million-plus
members demanding that Democrats vote no: "Every single Democrat must
vote against this bill. This is a key test vote on whether your
representative is serious about ending the war."

The bill is the current version of the Iraq spending bill, which many
Democrats, let alone those of us who voted for them, believed should
include a timetable for withdrawal of the troops. It doesn't.

Oh yes, there is some mush-headed language written by the Republicans
that creates 18 "benchmarks" for political and legislative change in
Iraq, and asks the president to report on progress beginning in late
July.

After all, why rush when things are going so well? And if the Iraqis
fail to meet the benchmarks, what happens?

How about nothing? Theoretically, the Iraqis could lose their "right"
to reconstruction aid, which isn't working anyway, and which obviously
is irrelevant to bringing the troops home.

And under the terms of the deal, the president is free to waive the
benchmarks anyway, which means that the language might as well be sent
over on toilet paper so it won't clog the plumbing when the president
flushes it.

Who made this deal? Who do you think?

The Democrats who were elected to end the war did, because they were
afraid to take on the President in a real showdown.

Nancy Pelosi may vote against it, but she was in the room. Harry Reid
can recognize b.s. when he sees it, but claims it was the best they
could do.

If this is the best they can do, what are they doing there?

The Democrats' excuse is that the president would have vetoed any bill
that included a timetable for bringing home our soldiers, something
he's done once already, and that they didn't have the votes to
override his veto.

And without a spending bill, the Democrats were afraid they would be
blamed for not "supporting the troops," which is the third rail in
Washington conventional wisdom about politics.

Now, I could make the case that you don't support the troops by
leaving them with a bull's-eye on their backs and no plan to bring
them home; that the Democrats are still refighting the Vietnam War,
petrified of the "weak" label, even though the truth is that we were
right about that war, just as we are about this one; and that strength
comes from standing up for what you believe in, not caving in to cover
your rear end.

I could even make the case that had it not been for the war, the
Democrats would never have gotten control of Congress, and that
there's no point to having a Democratic speaker if she's cutting deals
that she herself can't support, but expects others to held their noses
and vote for.

I might also point out that the reason that Congress has sunk below
the even the president in terms of public approval (although still
above Dick Cheney, who is almost down to his immediate family) is
because of the correct perception that they aren't doing what they
were sent to Washington to accomplish.

Indeed, in the talking points sent out Wednesday by the Democratic
leadership to "Democratic talkers," the official spinmeisters claim
that "Democrats are forcing President Bush to finally accept
accountability for this war. As we continue our fight to fully fund
the troops and change course in Iraq to make America more secure, we
refuse to give the President a blank check."

In other words, they know what they're supposed to do; the problem is
that they aren't doing it.

Instead, in what the Washington Post has correctly described as a
"victory for President Bush," the Democrats "relent[ed] on [the]
pullout timetable," and gave the Republicans what they wanted.

When you're playing chicken, the coward always loses.