An interesting post. Seems to me that we've got a Dem majority who are no less afraid of the "don't support the troops" smear than they were when they were in the minority. This becomes more and more relevant as the rhetoric moves from "Terrorism! Terrorism!" to "Vietnam! Vietnam!"

It has been amazing to watch the right go from "this situation is nothing like Vietnam" to "you liberals want us to lose, just like in Vietnam." Fun times.

The off-topic part: I am a little bit confused about your gradual jump over to Salon (I thought it was today, but my RSS reader and the comment vacuum over here suggest otherwise). I would like to start reading over here, but there is one major issue: is there no RSS feed for your blog? It's the best way I have to keep up on new posts.

A side-complaint is that this site is certainly slower than Blogspot, and the Flash ads make my Linux machine utterly freak out. Congrats on the new digs, nevertheless.

I thought, since I'm here, I might as well duplicate my comment this morning from the old Unclaimed Territory. Consider it a test, if you like, and my apologies if the comment archives are transferred later, and this duplicates my earlier post.

WT

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The problem with the Democrats is that they don't have an alternate narrative. If the war in Iraq is an aberration slowly become an abomination, what exactly is America's role in the world? Ask them, and you won't get a single answer.

Most Democrats in the House and Senate seem to accept the post-War narrative which their Party in fact invented -- America on guard against and finally triumphant over World Communism, America the guardian of world peace and democracy, America the ardent defender of the defenseless Jewish state. They question the tactics which put us in Iraq, but not the strategy.

Even many of the rank and file, the Democrats I worked with as volunteers during the last election, for example, believe that we're at war with irrational terrorists, that it is a war, and that GWB just sent the troops to the wrong place. They had/have no problem at all with the Iraqi sanctions, Clinton's air war against Saddam, or stationing troops in the stans on Russia's southern borders.

To put it plainly, the Democrats who have a fundamental criticism to offer of American foreign policy, and the economic policy which accompanies, it are a minority. You find many of us in places like this because our narrative has to be heard here first; it has little place in the councils of the Party at the moment.

The same was true during the struggle over civil rights, and during the Viet Nam debacle; the vilification of Fannie Lou Hamer, or Eugene McCarthy was every bit as debilitating then as Joe Lieberman is today. To this day, many Democrats blame us for the present weakness of the party. If you radicals hadn't split the party, Hubert Humphrey would have won, and the war would have been over in six months; if only you'd been more responsible.

If we want a true opposition to American Manifest Destiny in this country, we'll have to create one, and we'll have to win elections with it. The Democratic Party may be the more hospitable of the two parties to those who actually have an alternate narrative, but only just. These things take time.

What amazes me how effectively Bush has changed the subject with the "surge" proposal. After the entire elction cycle being dominated by "stay the course" vs "cut and run", the dichotomy suddenly shifted to surge vs stand pat. One of the downsides for those who actually oppose the war is that this shifts the "reasonable" position from staged withdrawal to stautus quo or IOW "stay the course"

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The Dems clearly don't have the votes to get a filibuster-proof majority on a defund the war resolution. That being said, they don't need one. All they need are enough votes _not to pass_ a supplementary budget request. That's just 51, not 60.

This is cynical, and awful, but I might agree with what seems to be the democratic strategy.

If the dems voted to cut off funding, the GOP would scream "STABBED IN THE BACK!" from now until kingdom come.

If you listen closely to HRC on the campaign trail, it seems to me that hers, and the general democratic strategy is to make sure that the Iraqi debacle is securely hung around the necks of the Bush Administration and their supporters in the GOP.

In the long run, this will help insure continued democratic majorities in Congress and help take back the presidency.

It's a long term solution toward solving our basic political problems.

Yes, it's awful and cynical, and more soldiers and Iraqis are going to be killed and maimed in the meantime.

I'm not sure if its their intent - but I'm convinced that by not passing a resolution to defund the occupation, Congress is avoiding a constitutional crisis.

Because Bush would just ignore them. Plain and simple. He'll steal money from other parts of the budget, he'll borrow without authoization - whatever it takes. A line in the sand is going to come down to "see me in court" really quick.

Do we want to be there? I don't think Congress is convinced that the nation is ready to impeach yet. So they'll build their case in the different committee hearings.