W won the battle, but he's still losing the war

Senator Chris Dodd, to date, has been as sensible as any Democratic Presidential Candidate about the War in Iraq. He's right - Bush is unwilling to do anything about his policy and the War in Iraq.

I've been pretty angry with Democrats about how they have capitulated to President Bush on Iraq, but I'm much more outraged at Republicans, who, through their votes, have allowed this idiotic, misguided war to continue. As far as I'm concerned, Republicans who voted for this war to continue all have blood on their hands. (And that goes for any Democrats [Hi, Senator Lieberman] who voted in favor of funding with no time tables for withdraw.)

As Thom Hartmann so succinctly put it on his radio show the other day, our collective outrage really had ought to be directed at Republicans, who allowed funding to continue by not giving either house in Congress a veto-proof majority to end funding for this war. But I've still got plenty of venom left for Democrats, too.

I just don't get it.

On Wednesday, Carl Hulse in the New York Times cited "senior Democrats" in a new analysis piece:

Democrats said they did not relish the prospect of leaving Washington for a Memorial Day break — the second recess since the financing fight began — and leaving themselves vulnerable to White House attacks that they were again on vacation while the troops were wanting. That criticism seemed more politically threatening to them than the anger Democrats knew they would draw from the left by bowing to Mr. Bush.

Some lawmakers favored sending Mr. Bush another bill with a timetable for withdrawal and risking a second veto, the senior Democrats said. But they said they had questioned whether such a measure could pass the Senate a second time, raising the possibility that Congress would be left sitting on the bill and carrying the blame.

"It would have stayed at this end of Pennsylvania Avenue," Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said of a second timeline measure. I guess the current "leaders" in the Democratic Party have never heard of an idea called "having courage for your convictions."

First of all, who gives a DAMN about Bush criticism? I still cannot believe, after all that has happened in the last 6+ years, that the Democratic leadership still runs and hides at the threat of White House attacks. It pains me to write this, but somewhere, Rasputin Rove is sitting and laughing at this latest turn of events. Never in modern history in this country has a president with scarcely over 18 months left in his presidency wielded so much power.

The time table abandonment is particularly galling since the chief reason Democrats were put in power last November was to fight Bush on Iraq and to end this war.

The time for the Democrats to sink their teeth into Bush's rear end is now. The Democratic rank and file voters want them to do it. Public opinion is on the side of the Democrats, too. I'd like to know just what else they need to get this job done.

I've read all sorts of conflicting reports about what will happen next year - a second surge, increasing troops levels, a massive reduction in forces, or more of the same. I'm not sure what's going to happen, but this you can bet on - the Republicans will find a way to spin developments in Iraq to blame it all on Democrats.

But, who needs a crystal ball to figure that out?