In the aftermath of an insurmountable Presidential veto, Congressional Democrats have withdrawn their demand for a timetable to draw down troops in the Iraq occupation.
In the aftermath of an insurmountable Presidential veto, Congressional Democrats have withdrawn their demand for a timetable to draw down troops in the Iraq occupation.
I want to say that this is a complete disaster, but Jeffrey Feldman's latest posting gave me pause, and more than a little, much needed, perspective.
The "double bind," then, is this: No end to the war without restoring the balance of powers and no balance of powers without an end to the war. And it has a brutal side-effect in that it makes change seem painfully slow--particularly when the media is so utterly lost and contributing to the confusion instead of helping to clarify.The solution, then--the "cure" to Iraq--cannot not just political, but must be structural and political all at once. To end the Iraq policy (e.g., redeploy troops, etc.), the Democrats must restore Congressional power which will in turn restore the balance of power. And the only way to do this is to reboot the deliberative process itself--to send bill after bill after bill.
Ultimately, the goal is to stop the occupation, restore the military, end the killing. But the path to doing that is not in one magic bullet bill--the end to the failed policy in Iraq cannot simply be delivered in the right word--be that word "timetable" or "benchmark" or even "impeachment."
What we must do--what the Democrats must do--is restore to our Federal system the core structures that generate American power. And they must do that because President Bush and his Republican accomplices, by virtue of having demolished the separation of powers, have left American foreign and domestic policy not only powerless, but without the means to generate power. Bush has created, in other words, the very scenario that statesmen like John Adams and Dwight Eisenhower understood so deeply.
The big question is, is this capitulation or is it simply a necessary pause as Congress reasserts its power?
Here's the thing: every vote is basically set in both chambers around the timetables issue and there's just no way to move that based on the current situation. We knew this was going to be the way of things when General Petraeus announced in April that he wouldn't report back to Congress again until September.
That being the case, a 4-month, $100bn package keeps things going, but puts that much pressure on that September report, even if the general is doing everything he can to diminish expectations. Regardless of outcomes, we know Petraeus will put the best face on things, but even the most hawkish Republicans have said that if the current escalation doesn't show some results by the Fall, they're going to bail on Bush.
Meanwhile, this vote puts full culpability for the fiasco/disaster/quagmire that is the occupation of Iraq squarely where it belongs: with our ignorant and pathological President and the weak-kneed, enablers in his party.
So this vote, says to Republicans and the President: YOU BROKE IT, YOU BOUGHT IT! And then the pricetag will come due in November of 2008, in the form of a Democratic White House and expanded majorities in both Houses.
[UPDATE: Stephen Colbert's translation of "You broke it, you bought it.": The Pottery Barn Rule:
"The Pottery Barn Rule. At Pottery Barn, if you knock over a lamp, you have to glue it back together, even if when your done it looks terrible and it doesn't work. Oh, and you have to stay in the store forever. Oh, and it's an exploding lamp."
rofl: [Watch the Video]