Strong Leadership Requires A Spine & A Willingness To Fight

From numerous postings made at various sites yesterday and today, and I am so pissed off, I can't see straight

Just what is it about standing up to an overwhelmingly unpopular and politically weak President that saps so many Dems of their spines?

Dems to Send Bush No-Timeline War Bill

The Dems completely caved on this, they should have sent W even harder Iraq funding bills to sign, as they could rightfully claim it was W who was playing politics with the US troops by vetoing very troop-friendly bills

This cowardice, when the public is clamoring for an end to the idiotic Iraq mission, is exactly why I will not register as a Dem

The Dems are trying to spin this as a way to get that minimum wage increase they championed signed into law, but if that comes with even more tax breaks for those already at the top of the economic ladder, then it's hard to see an overall positive effect

Send the minimum wage itself to W for a veto, see how well that plays for the GOP come November 2008, especially with a very key demographic that the Dems should be courting as hard as possible, Unmarried & Single women and mothers

Every day that goes by, every day we get closer to the November 2008 elections, GOP support for W's Iraq crusade crumbles a bit more, yet here the Dems are, acting as if they're the ones the public is against regarding Iraq

For every strong step forward towards holding W and the GOP accountable, the Dems apparently feel they have to take two weak steps backwards

Leadership isn't easy, and giving W everything he wants with no accountability in return does not make for successful political leadership, either now or in the long term

If the Dems roll over for W now, it's politically stupid, as the GOP's membership in the House and Senate have been making lots of noise about needing to see real progress from W's Iraq escalation by September, which is when Petraeus originally said enough time would have passed to give an initial assessment about any "success" attributable to the troop escalation

The Dems not being able to overcome a veto is one thing, the Dems not fighting for what they were elected to carry out is something else entirely

If the Dems can't even stand up to as politically weak and socially unpopular a President as W, that's not going to do them well in November 2008, as the talking points will paint the party as too weak to be trusted with public safety

For EVERYTHING that's happened at the hands of the GOP and President since Inauguration Day, 2001, the Dems have GOT to fight back against the Administration and it's enablers of all stripes with every bit of energy and strategy they have, and if they lose a battle, they get back up and try again

And again, and again, and again

You don't give up at the first defeat-if that would have been Lincoln's mindset, the North would have lost the Civil War

But our Civil War had two clear-cut sides, with fighting guaranteed to end when a formal Peace was declared

But who, exactly, are the US troops fighting for in Iraq's multi-sided Civil War?

The same people who have gotten every single aspect about Iraq wrong, the same people who have overburdened the US military to this extent, are the same people the Dems are giving in to here

The Dems "held their powder dry" when it came to NOT filibustering W's Supreme Court nominations, and look what it got them, and, unfortunately, the rest of us as well

The Dems have GOT to stop listening to the idiots like Lieberman and all the other W-enablers who say that to oppose the President at this time is tantamount to being an al-Qaeda sympathizer, and therefore an obvious affront to the values of most of the US public

And that the Dems are listening to such rhetoric over the REAL voters who wanted a definite wrap up of the unnecessary Iraq campaign is not only a cause for anger, but an insult as well if they choose to absolutely give W everything he's insisted on like a petulant child

To collapse like this as the GOP is noticeably now cracking in it's former fervent support of All Things W related, ESPECIALLY Iraq makes absolutely no political sense when so many GOP defections are being suggested for September if the Iraq escalation hasn't brought about noticeable and large decreases in the every day violence, while bringing about large, noticeable increases in security at the basic, street level

From a political and real-world perspective, it makes no sense for W to get everything he wants without paying the heaviest of political prices

The Dems may lose if they fight, but they definitely lose when they don't fight

If it weren't for all the damage W and the GOP have wreaked on our country and our Constitution in such a short time, I wouldn't be as upset as I am

For far too long have the GOP and W run like the most roughshod of bullies, and what I've learned the hard way is that bullies have to be stopped, they can't be reasoned with or appealed to, the only thing they understand all too often is a good swift crack across their mealy mouths, rhetorically speaking

So while I'll blast the Dems on this, I'll be arguing at the same time for even harder investigations of this Administration

But we have to do something the GOP was unwilling to do with W or it's own leadership, namely, hold the Dems leadership to account

The GOP's twin base of socially-conservative and corporate-friendly interests NEVER held the party accountable or required Executive Branch oversight from the GOP-run Congress, and that lack of Executive or Legislative branch oversight ended up helping the party and Administration get so thoroughly destroyed in the last election

So that's why us libs, even those of us not in the Dem party, need to be forceful with the Dem leadership when it's needed, the results of unchecked political power are never conducive to an effective democracy or that party's future success

And topping it all is the reality that the GOP is absolutely crashing & burning, regardless of the Dems blunders, and that reality is only going to get uglier for the GOP the longer the US is bogged down in Iraq, it's their war, and they can't shift the blame for their role in this completely unnecessary military action, no matter how fervently the GOP wishes otherwise

As we're watching with the completely self-inflicted fiasco regarding purged US Attorneys and the resulting Administrative cover up, the Administration is flying apart at the seams as well, a political trap it can't escape whether Gonzales resigns or stays on as AG, and that's only the Administration scandal that's getting most of the media attention right now, not all the scandals currently dogging it

When I blast the Dem leadership, there are Dems I will laud as well, and in this case, as is so often the pattern, Senator Russ Feingold is exactly why I have even a miniscule amount of hope regarding his party, along with others like Leahy, Durbin & Boxer

And Feingold is none too happy with this strategy either, as shown by his post at Daily Kos today

A Collapse for Democrats

This is no time to back down. This fight to end the war isn’t something that we can just put off or kick down the road. As mcjoan pointed out, it doesn’t make any sense to wait until this "mythical September" when Republicans will suddenly decide that we need to get out of Iraq. Why should this wait until September? First Americans had to put up with a Republican Congress that did nothing, and now we are faced with a Democratic Congress that is giving the President exactly what he wants – continuing his failed policy and leaving our troops stuck in the middle of a civil war. Some strategy. We can’t back down when the stakes are so high. I know you’ll keep ratcheting up the pressure, and that’s exactly what we need right now. Now is the time to be pulling out all the stops to end the war.

Exactly right, and thank you Sen Feingold for stating it as plainly as this

Backing down to a politically weak, and socially unpopular President at the same time his own party's support of his policies is crumbling-and with even more GOP support likely to flee from W come September, when assessments of W's escalation are expected-makes absolutely no political sense whatsoever

The Dems can't override a veto, but they need to make W pay as heavy a price as possible for pursuing his pig-headed strategy of Leadership by Spite to the US public which overwhelmingly smacked his GOP enablers last November

And as much as I'd like a 3rd party right now, the reality is that the Dems are the only group organized and powerful enough at the National level to get results in terms of thwarting W's lunatic military leadership

But the Dem leadership has got to stop living in fear of aggressively challenging W on any and all aspects of his Iraq occupation, they know why they were elected while the GOP was so demolished at the polls last November, and yet, they're still not making W pay a heavy political price regarding Iraq, even though the public clearly wants a draw down and exit from Iraq, sooner rather than later

Check out the lib sites, the anger at the Dem leadership on this is palpable and has the ability to derail the Dems political reversal of fortunes it finally accomplished last year

And as noted before, the Dems rolling on this is even more choke-inducing because the GOP is crumbling apart over Iraq, and the Administration is in complete free-fall in terms of self-inflicted political fiascoes and scandals

And the GOP is in free fall because it failed to exercise any oversight of W or it's own leadership, which allowed the problems to fester and expand. We have to keep pressure on the Dem leadership right now to avoid those future problems, aggressive voter oversight of their leadership is the only chance the Dems have at future political success

One thing the Dems could do to counter the impression that they'll constantly roll over for W is to really ratchet up the investigations, and that means putting repulsive political operatives like Karl Rove through as nasty a public and political meat-grinder as possible, in other words, give Rove a VERY nasty taste of his own foul political tonic

This Administration is made up of cowards and bullies, and the only way to deal with bullies is to confront them at every opportunity

Bullies can't be reasoned with, their "better natures" can't be appealed to, the only thing that gets them to move on is standing up to them whenever possible

That's how you deal with the Bush Jr Administration, treat them like the bullies and cowards they are, and NEVER back down, especially when the public is as against this President as it is

And now that this story is on CNN, there's one additional detail that makes it even more infuriating than before

Namely, this

Withdrawal timetable dropped from war spending bill

The House is expected to vote on the bill late this week. A House Democratic leadership aide acknowledged that there would be resistance from some liberal members of the party but expressed confidence that there will be "enough support" from House Republicans to pass the bill.

Great, us libs-and the majority of the Dems own voters from this past election-get ditched by the Dem leadership and strategists in spite of the fact the public sides with us regarding Iraq, and then they team up with the GOP to actually give W everything he wants, a party in massive disarray

The Dems will never pressure W into changing course and doing the Will Of The People by letting him roll up badly-needed cost-free political victories like this one

So the insanity that is W's Iraq Crusade continues, and Usama bin Laden laughs about how easy W is to manipulate and lead around by the nose

Just so aggravating on so many levels

Just so fucking aggravating