Democrats Come of Age Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Last week, Suzanne argued in the New Republic that

For different reasons, both the administration and its critics in Congress have essentially reconciled themselves to a continuation of something close to the present course of the war. Neither side's moves amount to much, and they know it. They're quietly tolerating the status quo, partly for political reasons and partly because--as bad as things are--there's grim awareness that they could get even worse. It turns out that nobody really wants to rock the boat.

Like everybody else, I'm watching the whip count, and I think she's about to be proven wrong in one important sense.

** Update 12:45pm They got 218...

By finding a way to pass this bill, and even look gracious doing so (cf. Barbara Lee and Maxine Waters last night, and all the Blue Dogs who didn't bark in public), the Democrats serve notice that the party is united around the determination that this war not go on endlessly with no clear goal or purpose.  The party finds a voice on national security that says:  be accountable to explicit benchmarks.  Be accountable for the readiness needs of the troops.  and be accountable to what the public told you it wanted.

To me, that looks like a big rock of the boat and shift in the status quo.

However, it is equally true that even if passed by both houses this doesn't alter the President's prerogative to conduct foreign and military affairs as he sees fit.  Public opinion data make it very clear that the public is somewhat impatient with these niceties, and regards Democrats as part of the failure for not changing a situation that, constitutionally, they are ill-situated to change. 

So in that sense, "nothing" is changing.  Progressives' job now is to get at least the base, if not the persuadable middle, to focus its anger back on the folks who make the decisions, and find creative ways both to explain how our system works and to find new ways to use the system to make real change outside the Beltway as well as in it.

It's also true that there's a huge gap in understanding of what "withdrawal" or "redeployment" means between the activist base, who think it means everybody, and most policy people I know, who think it means not Kurdistan, or not anti-terrorism actions, etc etc.  The Administration could really give progressives a hard time as November '08 approaches by redeploying a significant number of troops, say, next spring, and letting us fight each other over what mission is left.  I wish I thought we were going to face that.

Comments

[Dan Kervick]

The notion that the President has the constitutional "prerogative to conduct foreign and military affairs as he sees fit" is a myth. There is no consitutional basis for it. It is instead an informal, quasi-institutionalized tradition that has taken hold from a century of US aggrandizement, the shift to presidential government by an insanely outgrown executive branch that has accompanied it, and an unshakeable habit of congressional buck-passing. The congress has handed over so much power to the executive branch over the years that many have come to think that presidential despotism in the area of foreign policy is constitutional.

I think the "base" has a much clearer idea of "how our system works", or is supposed to work, than the much of governing class and pundit class. The Congress has ample constitutional authority both to direct and set foreign policy as well as fund it. It is just that this authority is one that it has become increasingly convenient not to exercise, when their are political risks involved.

This bill is worthless. Democrats haven't come of age. They have simply run away again as they did in 2002. The bill just gives the White House another extention on the war, and lards up the White House's own funding requests with a bunch of additional pork. What happens if the White House doesn't meet the precious "benchmarks". Nothing happens - just another debate. You say:

the Democrats serve notice that the party is united around the determination that this war not go on endlessly with no clear goal or purpose.

Well I'm sure that will come as quite a blow to the 3% or so of total psycopaths in America who somehow believe the war should "so on endlessly with no clear goal or purpose." I suspect the rest of America already believed that a war should have goals and a purpose, and not last forever.

[Don Bacon]

There is nothing in this bill, even if he president signs it, which he won't, that does anything to shorten the war. It tries to (1) make the Iraqis be the bad guys--they're at fault for this mess and they need benchmarks, and (2) take advantage of the "support the troops" patriotism that means so much to so many (as long as they don't risk anything). There is no "date certain" in the bill for getting out of Iraq (we can stay to fight the turrists), and there are no requirements in the bill that the president can't (according to the bill) waive. Plus there's $30 billion more for war and pork, including millions for spinach and peanut farmers.

The American people like and respect winners. They don't like losers. The Dems' bill will be vetoed and they will have to pass something completely acceptable to Bush, even though they are in the majority, and something the American people really don't want. Losers.

[Don Bacon]

The United States has moved from a country reluctant to be involved in foreign wars to a being a country where foreign wars are the norm and the welfare of the American people are secondary to the power and profits that evolve from foreign adventures.

The First and Second World Wars were instrumental in these changes. Wilson said he'd keep us out of WWI but the lure of power and profit changed US policy, and a similar course was followed by Roosevelt in WWII. More recently two government documents have codified and expended these policies. The first is National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68), 1950 which made the US the "center of power of the free world" and emphasized military power over diplomacy.

The second is National Security Strategy, 2002, which called for pre-emptive military strikes against potential adversaries as a part of the "war on terror".

So as this trend continues there is unfortunately little hope for any disengagement from eternal war.

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