ChickenDove Pelosi 'Fails' Again

Pelosi calls Iraq a 'failure':  

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said twice Sunday that Iraq "is a failure," adding that President Bush's troop surge has "not produced the desired effect." - Politico

Democrats continue to flail in the politics of Iraq.  Their obvious betrayal of the anti-war movement is well documented, but it didn't need to be this way.  By simply proclaiming victory and identifying our current action as an occupation, Dems could have won the debate, peeled off Republican Senate votes and catapulted the Democratic brand as the brand of moral leadership in the world.

The worst part is that Paul Hackett showed us how to win this debate years ago, and we're still fighting like losers.  

Join me for video and controversy below...
"Every single military goal that could be accomplished in Iraq has already been accomplished." - Paul Hackett

Watch the video and then, learn how we should have won the Iraq debate and how we still can...

Paul Hackett's performance on Hardball in the lead up to the 2006 election still stands as the high water mark of the Iraq war debate.  He was masterful, powerful and fearless, but most of all he was right.

Here are the key points:

1.  We won the Iraq war.
2.  Every military objective was achieved by "Mission Accomplished".  Bush has his victory, Dems need to just get over it, because...
3.  We are now an occupying force inside of a civil war, and we need to get the hell out.  

It's only on the other side of this argument that you can make the points that Pelosi is trying to make.  

"The purpose of the surge was to create a secure time for the government of Iraq to make the political change to bring reconciliation to Iraq," Pelosi said on CNN's "Late Edition." "They have not done that."
The speaker hastened to add: "The troops have succeeded, God bless them."

It's like immigration, you have to say the words "Secure the Borders" a billion times, before the politics enable you to get the comprehensive immigration reform that will actually solve the problem.

The problem is that because Pelosi and Reid have failed to master the politics of Iraq, they have given the republicans the cover they've needed to hang tough with the president, and possibly given them all of the ammo they'll need to fight back what should be the biggest Democratic wave election since the New Deal.

Pelosi's harsh verdict is a reminder of the dilemma for Democrats as they head into this fall's presidential and congressional elections:

They need to make the case that the country needs to depart from the direction set by Bush. Yet they don't want to look like naysayers at a time when Iraq has become more stable, albeit still violent.

Republican strategists say one of their few chances to avoid a blowout in November is to paint Democrats as defeatists.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) sparked a furious response from the right last year when he said the Iraq war "is lost."

You know, between you and me, I understand how the Democrats have handled the Iraq issue.  Because they failed to manage the debate correctly, the Republicans were able to hang together against "defeatism".  That left Dems with only two options:  cut funding and lose 2008 or suck it up and deal with this after the agean stables have been cleared out by election 2008.

I honestly agree that cutting funding would have been political suicide after they failed to declare victory in Iraq.  I get that, despite the fact that it's necessary and moral, it's more important for us to expand our majorities.  

I understand that the politically viable thing isn't always the moral thing to do, especially when you've already lost the debate.  Holding our breath for a few years is not a big price to pay, in exchange for overwhelming majorities in both houses and the White House, once you've lost the most important debate in the world already.  

JFK / FDR level majorities could allow for a real, transformative Progressive agenda.  On the other hand, these kinds of blunders by the leadership put all this at risk.  The strategy of Congressional Dems is a moral hazard, calculated for power in the midst of political failure. If the risk pays off they could still manage to claim enough victory to could change the direction of the country and the world through the 21st century.  

But this pushes that moral calculation into the realm of stupidity.  This is where political calculation becomes political failure.

If Dems continue to fight the politics of Iraq with such stupidity, we could be wake up on a Wednesday morning in November pronouncing that the war for the future of America is "lost", and defeatism will have truly come home to roost.

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