There's a shock.
The article begins:
Democratic leaders in Congress have decided to shift course and pursue modest bipartisan measures to alter U.S. military strategy in Iraq, hoping to use incremental changes instead of aggressive legislation to break the grip Republicans have held over the direction of war policy.
I'm sure you've all read it. I hope you haven't been forced to ponder the idiocy contained in that statement.
What could possibly be more pointless than the Democrats' altering Iraq War policy a little?
Because they want to show that if they alter the policy things will get better, in Iraq?
Or is it not, obviously, much more likely that any small alteration they offer will be blamed for everything?
"We want to get something to the president's desk," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Freakin' why?
You've got 14 months to the election. This is not a transportation spending bill, this is a binary, political question: "Are the Republicans right or are they wrong?"
The Dems think they want to go into the election being able to say "well, we got a few thousand troops out and we've forced Bush to nuance the policy, onto which we have once again signed."
So that EVERY Republican can immediately blame them for everything that goes wrong AND be able to ask Americans this question:
The War in Iraq is now and has been a bipartisan effort and a solemn commitment of the American people. Now whom do you trust more to lead this war: A candidate from the Party that wants victory, or a candidate from the party of MoveOn.Org and Michael Moore; a party which is totally divided, part supporting and part trying to block the bipartisan war?"
If I actually believed the premise of that question; If I could somehow think that the words "Iraq War" did not instantly make it absurd; If it was another war, lead by another President with another Republican party in an alternate Universe, I would immediately conclude that the Republican was probably the best person to lead the war.
Doesn't mean I'd vote for him. There are, as the Dems like to say "other issues".
But when something is a catastrophic and meta-tragic fiasco, you don't associate yourself with it, you hang it around your opponent's neck like a bell and slap him so it rings.