I’ll see your opposition to the war, and raise you even more opposition

January 18, 2007

It appeared for a while that Senate Democrats, dominated by presidential aspirants, were being unresponsive when it came to the war in Iraq. Voters, and more specifically, Democratic activists, were demanding that Congress do more to stand up to the White House. Silence and passivity weren’t options, but few Dems were stepping up with proposals.

That was last week. This week, we almost see the opposite — practically every Dem with a national profile is anxious to present their own policy. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) got the ball rolling, unveiling legislation that would cut off funding for the president’s escalation policy. It was just the beginning. Consider the presidential aspirants:

* Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) announced yesterday that he has a bill that would mandate congressional approval for any new troop deployments in Iraq. Dodd would also set troop levels based on January 16 levels.

* Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) announced she, too, wants to see a cap on troop levels, set on January 1 levels. Clinton would also require the president to get Congress’ permission before sending additional troops. Clinton said yesterday that her measure includes “tougher requirements” on the administration’s than Dodd’s legislation.

* Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) unveiled a non-binding resolution that would condemn the president’s policy and express the Senate’s opinion that “it is not in the national interest of the United States to deepen its military involvement in Iraq, particularly by escalating the United States military force in Iraq.” This measure is likely to get a vote first, before the Senate considers anything else. It may also draw a GOP filibuster.

* Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) also announced yesterday that he, too, would support a troop cap in his own legislation. But Obama also suggested his measure would go further: “…I not only favor capping the number U.S. troops in Iraq, but believe it’s imperative that we begin the phased redeployment I called for two months ago, and intend to introduce legislation that does just that.”

All of this prompted the WaPo’s Dana Milbank to say, “[B]y the end of the day, [Senate Democrats] had issued more bills than Pepco.”

Atrios described all of this as “progress,” but lamented the flood of disparate ideas.

I suppose it’s progress that major Democrats are trying to one-up each other on legislation-about-Iraq-that-won’t pass. Still, now that they have a majority and seem to generally agree that ending the war is the right thing to do, I’d prefer it if they got into a room and found something they could all get behind which would be an attempt to end this thing.

I do think Democrats (ones in office more than the 60s-scarred punditry) are at least understanding that this war is unpopular and there will be no backlash against them for attempts to end it.

It’s a good point. All of the bills proposed by presidential candidates have strengths and weaknesses, but it’s likely that none will generate a strong, bi-partisan majority. As a policy matter, if Senate Dems had a single proposal that would challenge the president’s policy forcefully, and might even have a chance at passing, that’d be the ideal.

But as a purely political matter, I have to admit, I’m delighted to see the would-be presidents in the Senate stepping up and showing some leadership. If they want to try and one-up each other on who wants to fight the White House most, that’s just fine with me.

A week ago, it seemed as if nearly all of the top Senate Dems were afraid to seriously challenge the escalation policy. Now, they’re doing the opposite. We’ll see which of the bills garner Senate support, and which have a chance at actually passing, but in the meantime, I’m encouraged by the responsiveness.

Pepco? Never heard of it. Is that some local (DC?) utility co? Think outside the beltway, Dana

  • It is also nice to have a Congress that doesn’t take its marching orders from the Executive Branch. Difference of ideas and debate are essential for the Body Politic.

    Who wants to bet the McCainiac will counter by calling for 400K troops in Iraq and shutting down public schools to pay for the jaunt?

    tAiO

    P.S. Yes, Pepco is an electric company for much of DC/MD maybe VA?

  • How to end this “thing?” It’s simple. My son came up with this one (he’ll be nine in March, by the way).

    “Divide the cost of the war by the number of soldiers, and you get the cost for one soldier.”

    Yep. A not-quite-nine-year-old kid just out-figured the whole damned United States Government. Pretty neat, eh?

    So—determine the cost-per-day, per-soldier, and you’ll have a baseline cost. Multiply the baseline by the number of troops you want to limit the simian-in-chief to, and that’s the monetary limit. Not a dime more. If the answer, for example, averages to 10 billion per month, then hold that as the baseline, and give Bush no more than that. If Congress catches him skimming from another program’s budget to get extra cash for Iraq, then bring criminal charges of felony theft. THAT gives you “the high crimes and misdemeanors” qualification—and dollars to doughnuts you’ll be able to implicate Cheney, Rove, Rice, and Negroponte in the whole sordid mess….

  • Thanks, taio, I thought maybe Pepsi Cola Company had been given the franchise on legislative functions.

    There is a strange dichotomy at work when comparing different branches of our government. The executive is by nature uniary, while Congress is talked about as if it is one entity at some times “the permission of Congress” and then in times like these with a flurry of different proposals it is shown to be a collection of people and not uniary at all. Bush exploits this in dismissing Congress as indecisive. (To take the analogy further Congress is a Jekyll and Hyde entity with its own built-in evil twin, always pulling it away from straight forward action)

    I guess that’s why most Presidents come from governors.

  • Atrios said “there will be no backlash against them for attempts to end it.” I disagree.

    Defunding the Iraq escalation will be portrayed as Viet Nam redux, with the left again in the role of siding with the enemy. Politically, it’s a killer, even though it’s not rational.

    I believe that Democrats must say something like this: “We will not obstruct President Bush, our Commander-in-Chief, in his conduct of military operations. We disagree with his approach and we doubt that this course can succeed, but will not obstruct his efforts.” This will make President Bush and the GOP the owners of the Iraq debacle, not the Democratic Party and our presidential candidates.

    Demonstrating the true costs of the war, both in dollars and in what that money could do here at home, is a great idea! It’s important to show how the dollar cost of Iraq affects peoples lives. Kudos to Steve and his 9-year old son!

  • I think this is the requisite preamble to arriving at the correct measure. But I really gotta wonder about Biden. Seems like he wants to lead the F-Troop wing. Bet he looks majestic riding backwards on a horse.

  • Congrats Steve, you can tell your son he just demonstrated Occam’s Razor -“All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one.”

    Scott W – my guess it’s up to six and counting with Murtha’s concepts being on the table for some time.

    I’d prefer if the Dems settle on some sort of consensus before letting everyone in Congress see if their pet proposals will fly. The country is looking for a tenable option not a passel of unvetted concepts.

    Furthermore, there needs to be good end result that the nation can get behind. That concept may be the need to save the military from complete implosion. The solution for Iraq willl have to be political. No amount of guns will save the nation or create peace. But our military does need to recover to keep us prepared to defend the nation in the future. Bush took out the nation’s military Cadillac and wrecked it: let’s put it back in the body shop before the fool totals it. If the proposal is about saving the military and not about abandoning Iraq, the public will support the measure.

  • zac822 writes: I believe that Democrats must say something like this: “We will not obstruct President Bush, our Commander-in-Chief, in his conduct of military operations. We disagree with his approach and we doubt that this course can succeed, but will not obstruct his efforts.” This will make President Bush and the GOP the owners of the Iraq debacle, not the Democratic Party and our presidential candidates.

    Zak, I’m surprised you can imagine in your wildest dreams that simple disapproval would in any way deter Bush from his chosen path. This is about a lot more than political maneuvering. It’s about more deaths of both U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians. It’s about tens of billions of dollars poured down a bloody hole. The hell with triangulation for political gain. The only thing Bush understands is force. Let’s use some on him.

  • I’ll see your cap on the troops, and raise you “HR 635″: Bill to Impeach the President – 38 co-sponsors and counting.
    http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:HE00635:@@@P
    Ohioan, @7

    Hey, Ohioan (and Curmudgeon,@8) don’t get too excited just yet …

    a) it’s not a bill to impeach; it’s a bill to form an exploratory/investigative committee, which would collect data and then, maybe recommend impeachment for consideration.
    b) not so fast with the “and counting”. Did you look at the *dates*?

    Conyers suggested the formation of that committee in Dec of 2005 — over a year ago. Most of the co-sponsors signed up for it in January-February of 2006, though there was one as late as June. Nothing since. More notably, nothing since the elections. Which, if I remember a-right, removed one of the co-sponsors (Cynthia McKinney of GA) from the list.

    So it’s not surprising we haven’t been hearing much about it; it looks like a dead duck, stuck somewhere in the black hole of the Hose Rules.

  • Sort of related… does anyone know how many actual American combat troops are in Iraq? Not support personnel, but real fighting troops. I came across a figure a while back, and all I remember is that as a proportion of the total it’s rather small.

    Just wondering how many of Bush’s 20,000 surge troops would actually be doing the job he says they’ll be doing. Are we really talking about less than half that number?

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