Posted by
on Thursday, March 22, 2007 12:53:57 PM
Word is starting to trickle out of the Congress that the Democrats are indeed divided over Iraq. This comes as no surprise as the Blue Dog Democrats have reined in Speaker Pelosi and her underhanded attempts to kill the efforty and the funding. Captain Ed picked it up from The New York Times:
Representative Dan Boren is a Democrat, but after visiting Iraq last week he announced a decision that puts him at odds with his party’s leaders: he intends to vote against their plan to set a deadline for troops to leave Iraq.
“A timeline, in effect, is cutting off the funds,” said Mr. Boren, a conservative second-term lawmaker whose territory covers the eastern swath of Oklahoma, from the bottom of Kansas to the top of Texas. “That is not the solution.”
His views have barely caused a ripple in his home district, but the House Democratic leadership has been working to keep Mr. Boren’s views from spreading through the party’s jittery conservative wing. At the same time, the leaders are trying to persuade liberals to support the legislation, even though it does not end the war nearly fast enough for their liking.
As the House prepares to vote Friday on a $124 billion Iraq spending bill, which calls for American troops to come home before Labor Day of 2008, an intensely private and anguishing debate has played out for many lawmakers through handwritten letters, telephone calls and conversations. Dozens of representatives have traveled to Iraq, even as antiwar activists staged protests in their district offices or at their homes.
The consternation among Democrats on the left and the right has made the outcome of the vote far less certain than leaders had hoped, particularly after respected figures like Representative John Lewis, a liberal Georgia Democrat, declared his opposition, saying, “I will not and cannot vote for another dollar or another dime to support this war.”
In the days before the vote, Democrats said they were short of the 218 votes needed to pass the legislation. Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the Democratic majority leader, conceded, “If you are asking me, do I have 218 people that I know are definite yeses right this minute, the answer to that is no.”
Even as the House grappled with the Iraq strategy on Wednesday, Senate Democrats said they would try to revise a bill calling on President Bush to withdraw most combat troops from Iraq within a year. A similar measure failed last week.
The Iraq debate is scheduled to begin Thursday afternoon on the House floor, but the final vote was delayed by a day to give leaders more time to build support for a measure that has proved to be one of the most significant tests of the new Democratic Congress. The debate over influencing the administration’s war strategy has roiled the party’s caucus, particularly the newly elected members who came to Washington on a wave of discontent over the war.
Representative Carol Shea-Porter, a New Hampshire Democrat who defeated a two-term Republican last fall by waging an antiwar campaign, said the Iraq debate had proved to be more distressing — and complicated — than she had imagined. Two weeks ago, as she suited up in body armor before climbing into a Black Hawk helicopter to fly into Baghdad, she said she began to plainly see both views, but wanted to support the troops and bring a responsible end to the war.
When she returned to her district last weekend and told constituents that she planned to support the Iraq legislation because it had a specific troop withdrawal date, she said she encountered “no murmuring, but screaming.” Even her family was furious about her decision, she said. “I was pretty clear that I was against this war, and it is a shock for people to hear me say that I’m supporting the supplement,” Ms. Shea-Porter said Wednesday. “I would have preferred it to happen faster, but I’m not a Congress of one.”
There are few votes to spare on either side of the party’s divide, with many members of the liberal Out of Iraq Caucus ideologically opposed to legislation they believe would fuel the war for at least another year and a half. Many conservative Democrats regard the measure as one that would tie the hands of the president, a notion that does not sit well in their districts.
They do not have the votes. The liberals in the House and Senate are starting to see that their platform of cut-and-run was not what swept them into power in November, but rather the consistent failings of the GOP on issues other than the war. We have been repeating that sentiment since November, and the Democrats are just now beginning to realize it. (That is all right, it has taken a few conservatives to come to that realization, as well, though the round-heeled ones in Congress stil seem to miss that point.)
The Blue Dog Democrats are the ones in charge in the House. They have stopped every effort launched by the Pelosi Antiwar Wing of the party, and it started with slapping Jack Murtha down repeatedly for his attempts to undermine the war effort. And while there is most certainly some stronmg-arm tactics being executed by the Democrats in the House, they would be wise to knock it off. If they keep it up against the Blue Dogs, those supposed allies will not be there when the Democrats need them most. They were elected from fairly conservative districts, and I doubt their constituents would appreciate their votes against the war or the troops.
This is also a lesson for the Democrats as to which side of the bread the butter is on. It is NOT with the antiwar nuts on the fringe that are staging protests outside of their homes in their districts. It is with the general John and Jane Q. Public Democrats that swept them into power. The antiwar fringe thought they were the ones that pulled this of, and nothing could be further from the truth.
It is, as Thomas pointed out yesterday in his call to Hugh Hewitt's show, as if John McCain thinks he can win in '08 without the base, and only his centrist and moderate voters. It will not happen. For the Democrats -- especially the Nancy Pelosi liberal wing -- they need everyone, not just the moonbats. The moonbats are disdained by their party's base as insane throwbacks that obviously do not grasp the gravity of the times.
Professor Glenn Reynolds makes the observation that the Democrats are so desperate to get this issue off the table for 2008 that they are literaly trying to bribe members of their caucus into supporting the measure via pork in the legislation. The pork within this bill is already reaching fevered proportions, as Gateway Pundit notes. (By my quick number crunching just from what is up on Gateway Pundit's site, that is just over $28 billion in pork bribes for votes. THAT should show you how desperate the Democrats are!) Professor Reynolds is indeed correct: The issue of the war and national security is so damaging to the Democrats that they want this issue off the table for 2008. But it will not happen that way because the war will still be going on regardless of how much they try to cut-and-run, AND their plans run contrary to Hillary's.
In the New York Times last week, Hillary boasted that a permanent US presence would remain in Iraq if she were elected. That sentiment apparently does not jive with the antiwar fringe in the House, and it shows even more division within their party. Rather than a party untied to do better for America, they are more like a bunch of schoolkids arguing over playground equipment. Of course, with the level of apparent immaturity within the Democrat party, would we expect anything less?
Marcie