Josh Marshall: Dems need to treat Iraq the way they treated Soc Sec.

[BurtWorm]

I.e., call the Republicans bluff and bring it directly to the voters: "You want more of what the WH and Congress are offering on Iraq? Go ahead and vote for them. But if you want an end to the occupation, a return to genuine respect for American foreign policy, an end to the high price tag for involvement in Iraq NOW, vote for Demcorats in November."


http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_06_18.php#008780

Kevin Drum was right a couple days ago when he said that the key problem for Democrats in coming up with a unified message on Iraq is that they're not unified. That's life. And it's not terribly surprising that they're not unified. We've gotten into an incredible fix in Iraq. And extricating a country from a predicament like this isn't easy. We have Democrats who think the whole idea was a disaster from the start and that we should leave immdiately, others who think it was a plausible idea bungled through incompetence, others who speak of timelines for withdrawal.

But the White House is making and has made its stand quite clear -- American troops in Iraq at least through 2009, and probably for the indefinite future; and no reevaluation of the basic concept of why we went in. So, a good idea to start with and we'll stay there more or less forever. (Saying we'll be there until 2009 and then having no plan to leave after that = forever.) That position is so out of sync with where the country is and so disastrous for the country's security and future prosperity, that I don't think anyone should be afraid to go to the country opposing it. The truth is that the president doesn't have any policy beside denial about how we got into this jam.

Democrats need to keep learning from the president's debacle last year on Social Security. They need to learn from how they confronted his gambit. You seldom can win a political debate unless and until you decide you are willing to lose it the right way. On Social Security the Democrats eventually made a decision and took it to the voters. If you want to keep Social Security, choose us. If not, choose the other side. And if we lose, we can live with that. Because we're confident that that's a question we're willing to take to the people.

-- Josh Marshall

[sallyseven]

1. You are right. The Dems have to make a stand on the

war. No fooling around. Make the people make a decision. He is afraid to listen to the people and it will be the last chance for all of us. He will try to pull something if he gains any strength in the next election.

[still_one]

2. And if they have to be made aware of that, then they won't

[PATRICK]

3. The world changed with Bush

before, reform and progress was a blocked, slow and forever compromised path heading into global crises of radical proportions. Bush threw that to the winds and riding, overall safely, the third rail of conventional political suicide, has shown that presumption and compromise no longer is a trap. Bush destroyed those "stable" features of insufficient civilization.

The Dems need only to live in this new world and forge a future of hope, NOT desperately try to restore a ruinous political order that is unfit and exposed and utterly ruined. Bush is scary. The future is scary. But having to choose between the two there is no middle. The middle ground IS the third rail.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

4. Uh huh. That was a great strategy. Didn't they do

what they wanted anyway?

Or did I miss something?

[Warren DeMontague]

5. You missed something. Bush's Social Security Bullshit was stopped

dead in the water.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

6. You are right. I was thinking of the Drug Plan

crap. Sorry.

My bad.

[Warren DeMontague]

7. Hey, nobody's perfect. That drug thing is a fiasco, too.

The mind shudders as to what would happen if we had let them pillage social security.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

8. There have been so many runs at so many

things, I lose track sometimes of who pillaged what when.

[Dr Fate]

9. Yes- someone tell the Democratic rocket-scientists to be the opposition.

What a break-through!!!