What are the Democrats up to?

By passing bills calling for troop withdrawal in the nex 12-18 months, Democrats seem to have decided that their only purpose is to defeat the enemy at home (Bush). In order to do this, they gave up on all the other lofty goals they campaigned on.

The bills passed are a strange mixture with something for every faction. For the anti-war crowd, there is a demand for a pull-out. For the moderate Blue-dogs, the pullout will not take place until next year. For everyone else, there is $20+ billion (with a "B") in earmarked funds.

The Democrats played hardball on this one. They slipped in appropriations for Congressmen without even being asked to. If a Congressman was still hesitant to vote for the bill they issued an instant press release saying that the congressman had turned his back on his district.

For those with short memories, these are the same Democrats who campaigned last year on a platform of fiscal responsibility and who promised to end earmarks. As I already said, none of those goals are as important to the Democratic leaders as handing Bush a defeat.

This also means a defeat for our troops. How can it be taken otherwise when it calls for a withdrawal at an arbitrary time regardless of what is going on at the time.

This does raise a number of questions:

If, as Rep. Murtha claims, we are making things worse by staying then why wait? Probably the biggest reason for the delay is that an immediate withdrawal would be seen by the American people as the surrender it is. By giving President Bush several more months to wage the war they can claim that it is up to him to win it in that time. This appears to be an attempt to shift blame.

Why October. 2008? That's the dae the House set. The Senate went for March 31. Is this an attempt to end the war before the election? Are Democrats worried that the 2008 election will become a referendum on the war with their candidate calling for an immediate retreat and the Republican calling for us to win? This is an interesting theory because it implies that the Democrats are afraid of what the people actually want (remember, they didn't run on retreat from Iraq, they ran on a "new direction").

Then there is the biggest question - is this meant to be anything more than an other non-binding resolution? The Democrats know that Bush will veto the bill. He's already started making noises about them abandoning the troops. They don't have enough votes to override a veto. Soon they will be in the same position that the Republicans were when they shut down the government under Clinton. Clinton won that one and no soldier's life was at stake because of Congressional inaction.

Faced with that reality, the whole thing could just be a big show to placate MoveOn.