AP - Dems Back Off Opposing Iraq War
by David Sirota, Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 05:43:56 PM EST
The Associated Press today tells the story of how Democrats in Washington clearly do not want to end the Iraq War. This story includes all of the tell-tale signs of both a party that disdains the will of voters and a media unwilling to report even the most basic facts: Nancy Pelosi reading Fox News talking points that claim conditioning funding on American troops' training is supposedly not supporting our troops; Harry Reid nonchalantly saying in the face of mounting casualties that there's no real urgency to do anything on the war because "Iraq is going to be there"; and the AP writer refusing to acknowledge consistent public opinion polls by CNN and the Washington Post that show the public strongly supports Congress cutting off funding for Bush's military escalation and conditioning funding on adequate troop training, respectively.
Make no mistake about it: The renewed refusal by Democrats to use their majority in even the most basic way to stop the war is a declaration that the new majority is not close to using even the most basic powers afforded to it to stop or slow down the war. In other words, in backing off, the Democrats have just weeks after the 2006 anti-war election mandate effectively declared themselves as supportive of the Bush administration's stay-the-course policy - a truly sickening act of cowardice.
This is all the more reason for folks to head over to the Progressive States Network's Anti-Iraq Escalation Campaign and use our website to demand your state legislature tell Congress that its behavior on Iraq is absolutely unacceptable. Clearly, the folks in Washington are so drunk off power they have decided to ignore the majority of Americans who want an end to the madness in Iraq. They need to hear from our states - and they need to hear from our states right now.
***Update (Chris): I hate moving into other people's posts, but I feel compelled to jump into this discussion before it goes any further. First, the article never actually quotes Pelosi saying anything against Murtha's plan--it just claims she said that. Attacking her because of words a reporter put into her mouth is unfair, especially considering how often it happens to Democrats. All indications are that Pelosi still backs Murtha 100%.
Second, in the Senate, this isn't an end to the bill that would rewrite Bush's authority, it just decouples it from a different bill about 9/11. Now, not only will the 9/11 bill pass, but did we really want to couple Iraq with 9/11? Connecting Iraq and 9/11 is a wingnut argument anyway. The rewriting of the AUMF is still coming up, just a little bit later. Complain about the delay if you want, but when one considers that Bush has all of the funding he needs to conduct the war until September 30th, 2007, a few weeks does not in fact make any difference.
Yes, the war is the most pressing issue we face, and yes there are Democrats who are not on board that we need to pressure. However, this is a crap article that is utterly unfair to the Democratic leadership that is in fact still pursuing plans to end the war as vigorously as ever. Both the House gradual draw down plan and the Senate rewriting of the AUMF are still in place, and will come up for votes within the next month. Frankly, I would have thought that once we were in power we would not have turned off our bullshit detectors when it came to the obligatory "Democrats divided" articles are regularly coughed up from places like the AP. Attack any Democrat who prevents this war from ending, but do so with fair attacks.
Anyway, I'm going to cut off this episode of point-counterpoint right here, because I am sick and should be in bed sleeping. I just wanted to make sure a different perspective was presented along with this post.
Tags: Harry Reid, Iraq, Jack Murtha, Nancy Pelosi (all tags)
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