Am I the only guy in the place who trusts someone like Admiral Sestak to act in good faith?  That David Obey episode really illustrated that there's absolutely no way for any Democrat to build credibility which won't be instantly disregarded by the base if they're not doing exactly what we want when we want it.

If Sestak is against this I want to know why.  Period.  I give him the benefit of acknowledging that he just might have a good reason!

 And we know how well THAT worked out for the Democrats.

 The Daschle Doctrine is alive and well in the Democratic Party. Sad.

 This is why I joined my local party's Central Committee. To smother the careers of these gutless wonders before they gain any traction.

How do we institutionalize and leverage our disgust with Democrats who do this sort of thing, beyond just saying we're not gonna raise money for them? (I gave to both Gillibrand and Sestak, but somehow I don't suppose that my angry comments on blogs--or even a phone call--will have much influence.)

My idea is here, but I'd love to hear others.

We need to establish an institutional memory--that exist more publicly and officially than in Chris and Matt's prefrontal lobes--to leverage our fundraising abilities. As a whole, harnessed together, the netroots is powerful: but we need that harness.

Although the Bush Administration seems to be imploding hour-by-hour out of sheer incompetence and shameless mendacity, I fear that across the aisle we are seeing an acute case of Democratic Attention Deficit Disorder.

Distracted by a new, genuinely astonishing example of malfeasance virtually every day, a lazy MSM and an easily diverted Democratic leadership are taking their eyes off the ball: Bush's and Cheney's egregious blunder of invading and continuing to occupy Iraq and the threat to double down on their debacle by replicating it in Iran.

Nancy Pelosi seems to know better. Surely Jack Murtha knows better. What is going on here? Is everyone else, outside of the Progressive Caucus, bought off by Big Guns or cowed by AIPAC?

John Edwards is trying to do what he can from the outside. Barack Obama has had a sensible position on the war from its beginning, but will he dare to step up now to offer real leadership and not just campaign statements? Hillary is at least flip-flopping in the right direction at the moment, but can she actually help push the Senate in a useful direction? Unfortunately, Harry Reid may be an overmatched, hopeless cause, so there is no real reason to be optimistic.

There is no medication to cure DADD. What is required is some spine and leadership. In the meantime, the boys in the Bush/Cheney bunker, not being entirely stupid, will take advantage of this DADD syndrome to pursue their agendas, foreign and domestic, and avoid any serious limits on their misdeeds.

As far as I can tell, the ADD-impaired Democrats now have even forfeited the constitutional responsibility of Congress to declare war. If Bush and Cheney decide to fabricate a pretext to launch the planes from the Eisenhower and Stennis Carrier Strike Forces against Iran, even the Democrats in the House and Senate seem prepared to roll over supinely and look the other way.

The Democrats will demonstrate the courage of their convictions by not applauding the attack on Iran quite so fervently as will the Republicans and the neocon cheerleaders.

I still believe in the values of the Democratic Party, however, no longer the party itself.

I predicted this. I simply call it the 'Vietnam Syndrome'. It works like this: People who are anxious to start wars and such always issue firm prophesies about how wonderful the results are guaranteed to be. (Of course, every significant authority on the matter has underscored the fact that nothing is more unpredictable, and all master plans are shot to tatters on day one.)

But once you have your war on, well then people tend to fear ending it because of dire 'unknowns' regarding the 'infinitely intricate' process of ending it.

Of course, in the big picture, this is a totally idiotic way of thinking. So really smart people avoid wars in the first place. It's not at all good to have dunderheads  in charge.

I will not waste my energy or money on the current leadership. I will be spending more of my money and energy on future Deans, Feingolds.

Dont give up hope. I have pretty much resigned myself to the fact that we will not be able to singlehandedly elect the Lamonts of the world overnight. It will take multiple efforts. I think we need to offer promising leaders more support.

Do not compromise past a certain point. We will not have leverage if we continue to support people who have crossed the line of acceptable compromise just for the sake of party unity because for these people compromise is a one way street. They need to know that blackmailing us with the possibility of dire alternatives is not the way to earn our support. And this alternative of the other party becomes dire only because these leaders of ours allows the Repubs to act this way.

(let alone that odious phrase "cut and run").

Democrats need to refer to it as redeployment, not withdrawal, not only because is it politically more expedient, but because it also happens to be true. Withdrawal implies that every last military person leaves Iraq, with the exception of those stationed to embassies and consulates. And even the most anti-war Dems are not calling for such total withdrawal, but rather redeployment (which is what Murtha calls it), in which the majority of troops are withdrawn, with the balance remaining to not only protect these embassies and consulates, but also serve as advisors and trainers of Iraqi forces, and some continuing to fight actual Al Qaida and associated terrorists, mostly in Anbar Province, or helping to guard the borders.

I think that most Dems--including most anti-war Dems--would support such a plan (and that many already do), and that it would be far more politically tenable than total withdrawal. Repubs could no longer credibly call it withdrawal, a "plan for defeat" or "cut and run", and Blue Dogs would have a much harder time opposing it. And it would effectively accomplish what current withdrawal plans call for, i.e. the removal of the majority of US troops from Iraq. And who knows, such a scaled-down and focused force might actually be able to better accomplish what it's supposedly there to do, i.e. fight terrorism. I mean, we still have sizeable troops in other parts of the world, and few people object to that. Why not base the Iraq redeployment plan upon these models?

Plan A hasn't worked (Dems' withdrawal plan, that is), so it's time to go to Plan B. And then Plan C. And D. And so on, until we finally get most of those troops the hell out of harm's way.

Where to now?

Third parties cannot work in our system.  The Nader/Green experiment was a disaster.

The Democrats sell out.

It still has to be reforming the Democratic Party.
Reclaiming the Democratic Party.

But how?  We need a strategy.  
 

There needs to be a real re-thinking, and re-coordination, of the whole money strategy involving the netroots. Money should only be given to candidates who meet with a representative committee and TOE THE FUCKING LINE. It's time to play hardball - like every other fucking interest group in the political system does.

If you keep shoving a $25 billion dollar bill in the face of the American people every 3 months they will demand that even the Blue Dogs vote to defund within a year. Voting for this horrible compromise bill now is a guarantee of 18 months more of the status quo.

I think the Out-of-Iraq caucus should just offer up 1/4 of the Iraq money with no strings and continue to debate the issue every day until there is enough public opinion to end the US war effort in Iraq.

Fund one-quarter of the White House request and demand they hold a regional peace conference to end direct US military involvement in Iraqi affairs. Some force could remain under a UN/NATO/Arab League badge for border control and the US could cut a side deal with the Iraqi government (both Shia and Sunni) to deal with Al-Qaeda with special forces-type ops. If Bush can't hold a conference by Labor Day and cut a deal by Thanksgiving then just defund the entire mess.

This compromise is the worst of all options - continued funding + illusionary conditions that make the Democratic caucus responsible for the conduct of the war while cedeing all control to the Bush administration.

It's a shit deal and should be opposed by any member intend on ending the Iraq War and not prologing it indefinitely.

What's funny is that the narrative in the press is that the Democrats are beholden to a radical minority in their party. That minority is said to be the "anti-war" faction. But the story reverses the roles. The small minority in the Democratic party who support the status-quo are the ones holding the party in check. We know, though, that they are out of touch with American opinion.

What really startles me is that the Blue-dogs don't seem to have that much control over the money funding elections nation-wide. How do they wield so much power?

phat

Look, the solution to this problem is so f-ing simple it's almost criminal that the Democrats ignore it:

Bush has submitted a budget that calls for only $50 billion in war spending in the fiscal year beginning October, 2008.  That means out of Iraq before October, 2008.

That's Bush's proposal, bitches! Out by October, '08. Call it "Bush's Plan." Codify it! Unite the country behind it. Surely the Blue Dogs will want to support the President's plan in a time of war...

Screw the idiot Democrats. I want a vote on "Bush's Plan" now.

If the bill fails on the floor, that's good. If it fails to get reported out, that's better.

We just don't know.

I think that those of us who have contacts in and around the Capitol (I don't) should keep in touch, and inform the rest of us the best they can.

The leadership seems to be in free fall right now, but eventually they'll fall to earth - and someone will have to scrape up the mess and start again.

We're only 10 weeks or so into the 110th - lots of fun and games to come.

Never give up, never surrender.

Keep thinking that this Bush's and the Republicans' war and not most of the Democratic establishment. Let's elect more Democrats and especially a Democratic president, that will help right?!

Sestak is working hard to end the war in Iraq and has introduced legislation that goes further than the current bill being proposed by the Democrats.  

Sestak's Bill calls for a date-certain to have the troops re-deploy out of Iraq by this December 31,2007 and calls for cutting off most of the funding for the war by that date.  The Legislation is called "Enhancing America's Security Through Redeployment from Iraq Act."

See these articles:

(1) "Former Admiral Says All American Troops Should Pull Out by Year's End";
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity /news/nation/16742343.htm

(2)'Congressman Joe Sestak's Bill Would Pull Troops From Iraq";
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsi d=17854136&BRD=1679&PAG=461& dept_id=86218&rfi=6