Did the Democratic congressional majority deliberately undermine the antiwar movement's drive to sabotage the Iraq war in 2007?
That's the thesis of a new article at Rolling Stone, "The Chicken Doves." Here's the introduction:
Quietly, while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been inspiring Democrats everywhere with their rolling bitchfest, congressional superduo Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have completed one of the most awesome political collapses since Neville Chamberlain. At long last, the Democratic leaders of Congress have publicly surrendered on the Iraq War, just one year after being swept into power with a firm mandate to end it.
Solidifying his reputation as one of the biggest pussies in U.S. political history, Reid explained his decision to refocus his party's energies on topics other than ending the war by saying he just couldn't fit Iraq into his busy schedule. "We have the presidential election," Reid said recently. "Our time is really squeezed."
There was much public shedding of tears among the Democratic leadership, as Reid, Pelosi and other congressional heavyweights expressed deep sadness that their valiant charge up the hill of change had been thwarted by circumstances beyond their control — that, as much as they would love to continue trying to end the catastrophic Iraq deal, they would now have to wait until, oh, 2009 to try again. "We'll have a new president," said Pelosi. "And I do think at that time we'll take a fresh look at it."
Pelosi seemed especially broken up about having to surrender on Iraq, sounding like an NFL coach in a postgame presser, trying with a straight face to explain why he punted on first-and-goal. "We just didn't have any plays we liked down there," said the coach of the 0-15 Dems. "Sometimes you just have to play the field-position game...."
In reality, though, Pelosi and the Democrats were actually engaged in some serious point-shaving. Working behind the scenes, the Democrats have systematically taken over the anti-war movement, packing the nation's leading group with party consultants more interested in attacking the GOP than ending the war. "Our focus is on the Republicans," one Democratic apparatchik in charge of the anti-war coalition declared. "How can we juice up attacks on them?"
The story of how the Democrats finally betrayed the voters who handed them both houses of Congress a year ago is a depressing preview of what's to come if they win the White House. And if we don't pay attention to this sorry tale now, while there's still time to change our minds about whom to nominate, we might be stuck with this same bunch of spineless creeps for four more years. With no one but ourselves to blame.
It's an interesting thesis...if you like hare-brained theories.
The main argument here: The Democratic congressional majority's political agenda after their midterm victory was to APPEAR antiwar, so as to increase the party's electoral prospects for 2008.
The problem with the argument?
Well, even a cursory glance at Iraq war polling data in 2006 fails to demonstrate unequivocal public demands for a complete and immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. Claims to that effect are more than left-wing myth-making, however: This is the antiwar movement's big lie of 2007.
It's a strangely malevolent thesis, in any case, and it forms the basis for radical claims of a Democratic mandate to bring the troops home. Pure bunk, though, if one really knows what's happening.
But here's more from Rolling Stone:
Rather than use the vast power they had to end the war, Democrats devoted their energy to making sure that "anti-war activism" became synonymous with "electing Democrats." Capitalizing on America's desire to end the war, they hijacked the anti-war movement itself, filling the ranks of peace groups with loyal party hacks. Anti-war organizations essentially became a political tool for the Democrats — one operated from inside the Beltway and devoted primarily to targeting Republicans.
This supposedly grass-roots "anti-war coalition" met regularly on K Street, the very capital of top-down Beltway politics. At the forefront of the groups are Thomas Matzzie and Brad Woodhouse of Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq, the leader of the anti-war lobby. Along with other K Street crusaders, the two have received iconic treatment from The Washington Post and The New York Times, both of which depicted the anti-war warriors as young idealist-progressives in shirtsleeves, riding a mirthful spirit into political combat — changing the world is fun!
But what exactly are these young idealists campaigning for? At its most recent meeting, the group eerily echoed the Reid-Pelosi "squeezed for time" mantra: Retreat from any attempt to end the war and focus on electing Democrats. "There was a lot of agreement that we can draw distinctions between anti-war Democrats and pro-war Republicans," a spokeswoman for Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq announced.
What the Post and the Times failed to note is that much of the anti-war group's leadership hails from a consulting firm called Hildebrand Tewes — whose partners, Steve Hildebrand and Paul Tewes, served as staffers for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). In addition, these anti-war leaders continue to consult for many of the same U.S. senators whom they need to pressure in order to end the war. This is the kind of conflict of interest that would normally be an embarrassment in the activist community.
Worst of all is the case of Woodhouse, who came to Hildebrand Tewes after years of working as the chief mouthpiece for the DSCC, where he campaigned actively to re-elect Democratic senators who supported the Iraq War in the first place. Anyone bothering to look — and clearly the Post and the Times did not before penning their ardent bios of Woodhouse — would have found the youthful idealist bragging to newspapers before the Iraq invasion about the pro-war credentials of North Carolina candidate Erskine Bowles. "No one has been stronger in this race in supporting President Bush in the War on Terror and his efforts to effect a regime change in Iraq," boasted the future "anti-war" activist Woodhouse.
With guys like this in charge of the anti-war movement, much of what has passed for peace activism in the past year was little more than a thinly veiled scheme to use popular discontent over the war to unseat vulnerable Republicans up for re-election in 2008. David Sirota, a former congressional staffer whose new book, The Uprising, excoriates the Democrats for their failure to end the war, expresses disgust at the strategy of targeting only Republicans. "The whole idea is based on this insane fiction that there is no such thing as a pro-war Democrat," he says. "Their strategy allows Democrats to take credit for being against the war without doing anything to stop it. It's crazy."
Justin Raimondo, the uncompromising editorial director of Antiwar.com, regrets contributing twenty dollars to Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq. "Not only did they use it to target Republicans," he says, "they went after the ones who were on the fence about Iraq." The most notorious case involved Lincoln Chafee, a moderate from Rhode Island who lost his Senate seat in 2006. Since then, Chafee has taken shots at Democrats like Reid, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, all of whom campaigned against him despite having voted for the war themselves.
Read the whole thing.
I've noted previously the megalomania and political hatred of those on the antiwar left. But what's incredibly amazing is how little these folks understand the true nature of political power!
If anyone wanted to bring about an immediate surrender of America's project in Iraq it's Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. These two congressional leaders have made their purpose in power to demonize the administration, the military, and the war itself. It's all been an unmitigated disaster, to hear congressional pronouncements for the past 14 months.
Indeed, twice this weekend Pelosi declared the war "a failure" and how President Bush's troop build-up had failed to produce "the desired effect." (The new strategy, by the way, is discussed as the "surge" in the Rollling Stone piece, with the emphasis on the scare quotes as a delegitimization technique).
I offered an in-depth analysis of the Democratic Party's failed war strategy in a previous post: "Democrats Squandered Opportunities on Iraq."
I'd just like to suggest here that Rolling Stone's essay is nothing more than a nihilist screed. The author makes threats but offers no substantive direction for change. What will the antiwar folks do if they don't get their way on an Iraq withdrawal next year? Stomp and cuss their heads off, if this article's any indication:
How much of this bullshit are we going to take? How long are we supposed to give the Reids and Pelosis and Hillarys of the world credit for wanting, deep down in their moldy hearts, to do the right thing?
Look, fuck your hearts, OK? Just get it done. Because if you don't, sooner or later this con is going to run dry. It may not be in '08, but it'll be soon. Even Americans can't be fooled forever.
Truth be told, Pelosi and her radical Democratic hordes were stymied by incompetence and institutional vetoes. They were simply clueless on what to do with the reins of power.
Had they enjoyed a veto-proof majority coming out of 2006, however, U.S. infantry divisions would have been decamping stateside over the last year, the surge would have been strangled before getting on its feet, and ethnic violence would have reached proportions of unimaginably horrific violence.
This is what the antiwar base wants, and this is exactly what Democratic leaders hope to achieve. A brute numerical majority emerging out of this year's legislative races would certainly compensate for the party's governing incompetence.
I'd hate to be proven correct by the unfolding of events this fall.
Thus, the sooner the Republicans wrap-up their nomination fight and begin rallying the faithful in fundraising, voter mobilization, and rapid reaction strategies, the better off Americans and their foreign affairs will be.
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