And Democrats have long said that the real solution in Iraq will be a "political solution" rather than purely military. I don't really see how that is "honing a new message." Stinkin' mainstreammedia

The implication that this is somehow just a piece of desperate spin from Democrats trying to deny that we're making progress is preposterous.

And the implication that this is somehow just a piece of desperate spin from Republicans trying to claim that we're making progress is obvious.

Why does the Washington Post hate America?

With all due respect, where have you been for the last seven years? Please stop acting "shocked! shocked!" that Republicans and/or the media habitually and deliberately misrepresent Democratic positions. Republicans will say or do anything, without regard to the facts or the common good. The Democrats seem incapable of even articulating, yet alone successfully defending their positions. (And I simply can't recall the last time the Democrats led a sustained attack on the GOP/Bush administration that got any real traction in the news).

Right now the Republicans (though they're calling it "grass roots") are running a $15 million, 20 state media blitz featuring Iraq vets and the families of dead soldiers to sell the Iraq war. One of the main themes: 9/11 and how if we don't win in Iraq, we'll get attacked here again.

They peddle fear, hate and division - and appealing to those base emotions works, even when it stops making logical sense.

The Democrats fail because they are unwilling and/or incapable of fighting fire with fire. Heaven only knows that the Democrats have far more ammunition to use against the GOP than the other way around - and yet they don't. The Democrats don't know how or are unwilling to fight back. They haven't even started assembling the kind of media machine they need to be competitive with the Republicans (it can takes years, btw). Without it, they'll continue to have little or no real ability to shape and direct public debate.

The failures of the Democratic party have repercussions beyond the war and other individual policy issues. The core of our democratic principles as a nation, indeed our very constitution, are in grave peril.

Meanwhile, watching the Democratic leadership is like watching monkeys in the cockpit of a jumbo jet. Even if they could stop shrieking, jumping and swinging around long enough to actually take the controls in hand, it's hard to have any confidence they'd know what to do anyway. It's hard not to feel we're screwed either way.

So to answer your question, yes, the leadership of the Democratic party ARE IDIOTS, just not for the reasons you have listed.

What positive signs? 200 dead in one car bombing while the government-on-vacation loses all its Sunni components.

Al, you pathetic tool, your "cut-and-run" taing points are hopelessly out of date. Please wipe Karl Rove's semen off your blue Gap dress before mother comes home. And face it: he's gone!

Neither security nor political reconciliation are anything but mission creep and spin.

From the perspective of U.S. interests, Iraq started out as a fiasco and ended up as a bottomless money pit.

As far as security, certainly the powerful military of the U.S. can bully the Iraqi insurgents into submission in the manner of Saddam Hussein brutalizing Kurdish and Shiite insurgents, but is this "winning?"

No matter how stable and democratic Iraq becomes, it will certainly be anti-American, anti-Israel, and free enough to harbor terrorism for the next century.

Kevin, you leave out a third possibility, the most infuriating of all...the one which (much as I hate to even come close to agreeing with him) Al alludes to:

That the Dems have actually hitched their political wagon to defeat in Iraq and are, in some sense, rooting for it.

The fact that they first emphasized the lack of military success, and then switched emphasis to the lack of political success is a sickening sign. Almost reminiscent of Bush's switch of emphasis from WMDs to his democracy/human rights rationalization.

I'm not happy about this possibility, but I AM worried about it. Don't forget that the Dems are politicians, too, and only marginally better than the Republicans. Parties are organizations, and their intentions are probably partially functions of the intentions of their slimiest members.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher makes an interesting observation:

"I don't know of anybody who isn't desperately supportive of the military," she said. "People want to say positive things. But it's difficult to say positive things in this environment and not have some snarky apologist for the White House turn it into some clipped phraseology that looks like support for the president's policies."

It's not immediately clear, but I can't help wondering whether or not this article is doing the exact same thing. One thing is certain, though. Rep. Jerry McNerney is a complete idiot:

"We should sit down with Republicans, see what would be acceptable to them to end the war and present it to the president, start negotiating from the beginning," he said, adding, "I don't know what the [Democratic] leadership is thinking. Sometimes they've done things that are beyond me."

Sounds like there's an awful lot that's beyond him.

Before the vilification begins, let me note that I DO realize that the Dems have generally emphasized political success/failure, and one possibility here is that they focused on military failure when it was clear because it was more salient. And it was more salient in part because military success seems like a necessary condition for political success, and because the public pays more attention to the military stuff.

This, along with G. Greenwald's piece today have really got me down. It's depressing and frustrating to keep seeing this crap from our democratic representatives. Why am I bothering to help democrats get elected when they keep doing this shit?

The public is against the war. The public wants the war to end. DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO END THE WAR. It's good politics and it's good government. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT.

AAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHH!

Sorry.

Kevin is right in the narrow sense that political progress has always been the ultimate goal, but he is wrong in the larger political sense because democrats obviously previously have been declaring the war lost and the surge a failure, so they now need to change their tune.

The democrats are engaging in the same misconduct again, in the sense of taking the position that they think will help them politically in the pursuit of power, rather than what is in the country's best interests. They declared the war a loss prematurely because they thought it would help them take power, and now they are prematurely declaring the Iraqi political process a failure to try to help their pursuit of political power.

The whole thing is sickening. I don't know if the Iraqi political process will ultimately produce an acceptable result, but for the democrats to simply develop strategies to help themselves politically in a time of war is awful. The pursuit of power is so addictive that perhaps the republicans would do the same thing if the roles were reversed, but the reality is that in the current situation it is the democrats who are guilty of putting their political welfare above the welfare of the country.

We want the Iraqi politicians to resolve very significant and important political disputes in a short time period. Has the US political system ever resolved complex issues quickly? We obviously can't reach agreement on Iraq today. Look back on history, when did the US ever resolve complex political disputes in a short time frame? Maybe the realities of politics will doom Iraq. It almost doomed the US in 1860. From that perspective, the best I think we can hope for is significant miliary progress and modest political progress.

"I don't know of anybody who isn't desperately supportive of the military," she said.

Gleet to meet you, Rep. Tauscher.

[When you get into mhr territory, you get deleted like mhr.]

Ah, Brian Baird morphing into Linda Smith - The Repugs from Thurston County to Clark County will be sooooo pleased. Say good-bye to a sixth term, Brian.

Geez, Brian, there is still time to clear cut the Gifford Pinchot.

brian at 2:12 PM:
… democrats … now need to change their tune
Why? The war is lost and the surge is a failure. It was supposed to provide a respite for political reconciliation that hasn't happened. That is failure by any definition but a neo-con's.

The democrats are … taking the position that they think will help them politically in the pursuit of power, rather than what is in the country's best interests….
In case you forgot, it was Republicans, Rove, Bush, Chenet, etal who used the tragedy of 9-11 for their political agenda instead of trying to unify the country for its best interests. Putting Party about Country is Republican SOP.

…I don't know if the Iraqi political process will ultimately produce an acceptable result. …
When you invade a country without justification, you cannot expect positive results of any kind. When you do so for domestic political gain and in otherwise do everything incompetently, only disaster can result.

We want the Iraqi politicians to resolve very significant and important political disputes in a short time period…
No shit, when did you figure that one out, Sherlock? How many billions do you want to spend, how many American casualties do you want to see how many Iraq deaths, how many refugees while you and they sit twiddling your thumbs?

Hey, ole TruthPolitik,

How are the e-Bay sales of your photos standing, what only 2 or was that 3, down from Gorbie on May Day?

If it's wrong, it means the Post is falsely making Democrats out to be idiots who are only now coming around to the idea that political progress is what really matters in Iraq. If it's right, then it means Democrats really are idiots who are only now coming around to the idea that political progress is what really matters in Iraq.

I think the real third option is that Democrats are smart (well, non-idiotic, at least) in a political culture that hinders being smart. The Democrats might be dumb in the way the story makes them sound (the way you think the story makes them sound), but then again, they might know better and have no easy way to make it clear in a soundbite-based media environment.

To put it another way, yes, political progress in Iraq is what really matters, but how do you know that? Not because you hear it from major media outlets, probably. Blogs say it and occasionally the wonkier commentary shows mention it, but not much more than that. Most commentary focuses on stuff like whether Petraeus is reliable or on how sucky things are in Iraq without any deeper analysis, and what most people care about is when and how their friends and family overseas are doing. So that's what the Democrats have been focused on.

So far, the most common argument about the war by the most prominent spokespeople has been how the military side of things has been counterproductive at best. It's simple and straightforward and what people care about the most. It makes a good soundbite. Unfortunately, of the many arguments against the current war, it is not the strongest one logically. Now that it's becoming undercut a little more, Democrats are emphasizing other problems as well. Complain about the tone of the WaPo article if you want, but if what it says is true, I don't find it as horrifying as everyone else seems to.

Al Maliki has no credibility because his country is occupied by a foreign power and so he is seen as a Quisling. This lack of credibility leads to violence because his government has no authority. We crack down on the violence, thereby underscoring his lack of credibility. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Just a few more days until the Robert Strickler-Bob Murray rewrite of the Petrateus Report is due.

Well, heck, they failed in Mine Safety - Makes them perfect candidates to help run Bush's War.

I live in Baird's district and am a democrat but notified him that his support for this surge is going to cost my vote and makes no sense, citing British generals and foreign affairs article.

It is terrible that he is buying in to this.

The implication that this is somehow just a piece of desperate spin from Democrats trying to deny that we're making progress is preposterous.

Hardly, Kevin. Dems have decried a lack of military progress for a while now. They are smart enough to switch arguments when it suits them.

Military advances may lead to political progress - we'll see. Although the only the only thing that looks like political progress (at the federal level) is that the Baathists may joining the government.

It is terrible that he is buying in to this.

Yeah. I heard the chucklehead explain that since he went to Iraq and saw the Pentagon dog and pony show first hand, that he somehow has a clearer vision of the situation, and wants to wait just one more FU.

My only question is did he lose his mind (some people get all gooey when they see a chest full of medals) or get his palm greased?

Withdrawing from Vietnam emboldened the communists just like withdrawing from Iraq will embolden the Islamofascists

So if we withdraw, in 30 years the "islamofascists" will be strong...in Cuba and North Korea? Sounds like a plan!

I think you're over-reading it Kevin.

Democrats have said all along that we need political progress, and that without security there could be no political progress. Democrats have also said that the Surge was not working, and would not work.

Now that it appears that Beltway CW thinks the Surge may have had some positive effects. If so, then Democrats can either challenge the CW by arguing there's been no improvement, or they can reiterate the need for political progress.

Given that Petraeus' report is coming in a few weeks, and that it will almost certainly say we're making progress on security, it makes sense to pre-empt the GOP talking points. Repositioning now to shift the debate on to political progress is smart - it's the core issue in Iraq, and it's one that is not so easily stage-managed by the Administration and Pentagon.

How art thou wrong, Washington Post, let me count the ways.

It's also wrong because it assumes that short-term military progress made by devil's bargains with Sunni insurgents will translate into long-term military gains, amongst its many wrongs.

GWB just did a 180 and compared the Iraq war to Vietnam, but all the MSM will cover is how the Dems have flipped.

this article has nothing to do with how the democrats think; it has to do with the current high narrative of the war, which begins and ends with "war critics michael o'hanlon and ken pollack see progress."

so to the kinds of people who think that o'hanlon and pollack are "war critics" naturally think that this must force the dems to "recalibrate" their message.

and so that's what they type.

democratic planning got nothing to do with it.

GWB was for debaathification before he was against it -- I guess you could call that rebaathification.

Political progress has always been the goal in Iraq. ... The whole point of getting a handle on security...

—Kevin Drum

Not according to HRC and other dem leaders. They say the surge is "working" -- despite no political progress. Once again, you (and I) have been sold out by our leaders.

These are cowards, not leaders -- HRC and the whole bunch -- who don't deserve to lead the country.

This has probably already been raised above, but what's been most infuriating to me is the acceptance without much question that "the Surge" is "working" from a military standpoint when there is little to no independent evidence that this is the case and a fair amount of independent evidence that it is not.

Even arguing that this about politics and not national survival (ours) is playing into Karl W. Cheney's blood-soaked hands.

Senate GOP Senate Leader and President Bush: U.S. Would Pull Troops if Maliki Wants Them Out

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Sunday on ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" that the United States would "certainly" leave Iraq if the Iraqi government were to ever decide it wanted U.S. troops out of the war-torn country.

"If the Iraqi government ever decides they want us to leave," said McConnell, "then certainly we would comply with their wishes, they are a duly elected sovereign government."

Even though the issue has not yet come to a formal vote, a majority of the members of the Iraqi parliament signed onto a resolution earlier this month calling for the United States to get out of Iraq. McConnell's comments were prompted by Stephanopoulos asking: "Shouldn't their wishes count here?"

(snip)

In an interview last month with PBS's Charlie Rose, President Bush said the U.S. would leave Iraq if asked to do so by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

"This is a guy," said Bush of Maliki on April 24, "who has been elected by the people. And it's a sovereign nation. And we're there at their request. The truth of the matter is, if they said 'get out now, we're tired of coalition presence, the U.S.'s presence is counterproductive,' we would leave."

I wonder how this all plays into the so-called coup rumors?

From the WaPo article mentioned by Al: What Republicans left out was the rest of Durbin's remarks: "We cannot win this war militarily. We just can't send enough troops."
That says it all. Stick a fork in Iraq. It's done.

The progress in Anbar province is largely due to al-Queda's overplaying its hand and the sheiks are fighting back. So Iraq's civil war has worked to our advantage for once. That's no reason to keep our troops in it. Joe Biden's the only person in Congress who makes a lick of sense on this. Partition and redeploy.

GWB just did a 180 and compared the Iraq war to Vietnam, but all the MSM will cover is how the Dems have flipped.
Posted by: Disputo

Hope you watched the first half of Hardball.

"The whole point of getting a handle on security was to give the Iraqi government "breathing space" to reach a political accomodation, a process that's recently been going backward, not forward. The implication that this is somehow just a piece of desperate spin from Democrats trying to deny that we're making progress is preposterous."

We have not yet got a handle on security and the Iraqi government hasn't had that breathing space. So I would say that predictions of the failure to reach political accommodation are premature.

and the Iraqi government hasn't had that breathing space.

Yeah, I hear that the Bahamas are pretty crowded this time of year....

this issue is so stupid for so many reasons. first and foremost of which is that this bullshit "surge" hasn't done anything to help anyone. why there is even a general mem that its "working" is mystifying enough, but why elected Democrats are buying it is beyond belief. what the hell is wrong with them? anbar province, where we pretty much pulled out of a year ago, is a sign that things will, in some areas, be MORE peaceful when we leave! nobody thinks baghdad will be, but more homogeneous places will. people living freely have no need for militias, mercenaries and terrorists' presence. oppressed minorities in dense populations do. and since there ain't shit our army can do about that, we have to leave and stop aggravating places which would be more peaceful without us, and offer large $$ to the Shia gov't to not slaughter the Sunnis, and offer yet more large $$ to the Sunnis to disarm. that is our best option. everything else just delays us doing that, while we continue to throw money and lives away as if we had an inexhaustible source of either.

Oh please, don't even mention Joe Biden's hare-brained scheme to forcibly relocate huge swaths of the Iraqi population. Exactly what the hell army does he expect to carry out that bloody business? Ours is already stretched pretty thin. A plan to partition Iraq will mean a gross, massive ESCALATION of the war, igniting a thousand new mini-conflicts and inflaming sectarian hatred. It could never, ever work in a million years. Its even more wishful thinking than "we'll be greeted as liberators"!

Is the surge working? The Iraqis who work for McClatchy's Baghdad bureau don't seem to think so:I pass through Sadoon Streetor the beating heart of Baghdad as we used to call it. It was once the most beautiful street in Baghdad.

When a government can’t control a street, its not a government, its only a groups of puppets.
Its time to get ride of all the Iraqi puppets in the Green Zone and start searching for real Iraqi in others places no matter north or south , Sunnis or Shiite or even from any minority . the most important thing is to find real men who serve Iraq not the puppet in the white house.

Everyone always says the purpose of the surge is to buy time to find a political solution, but I personally no longer believe this. The purpose of the surge was to buy time for the Iraqi military to become strong and stable enough to take over the security functions currently carried out by Coalition forces. That would permit the Iraqi army to prop up the government that we currently prop up. Unless, of course, the Iraqi army leaders believed a military coup would be a better solution. But if such a thing were to happen, the coalition would be gone, so it wouldn't be considered the coalition's fault.

The purpose of the surge was to buy time for the Iraqi military to become strong and stable enough to take over the security functions currently carried out by Coalition forces.

The purpose of the surge is to buy time until GWB leaves office in Jan 2009.

Add to this the fact that Al-Maliki told us, in not so many words, to fuck off today.

He told us this . . . from Damascus.

And we continue to pour blood and treasure into that country like we have an endless supply of it.

Proving once again, there is nothing more strange than the truth.

Al wrote, Withdrawing from Vietnam emboldened the communists just like withdrawing from Iraq will embolden the Islamofascists.

Yeah, it really emboldened them stinkin' Commies. In a few years they were in a border war with pinko China, and drove the Khmer Rouge out of Cambodia. Few years after that, they moved their economy towards a more capitalist system.

They really showed us, them Reds!

Killing Fields? There were not any stinking killing fields.

This is just more Media lies.

The only thing all of this "the surge is working" talk has done is to shore up a slight amount of Republican support. The public doesn't believe it, and they don't really believe the media anymore either.

Let's see the surge is working-not.Any body that's graduated from the third grade and has the reasoning abilities of a chimpanzee can see that the surge isn't working.

Let's look at the fact that after four years we can't even provide electricity or water on a remotely regular basis. You don't have to be a genius to figure out that people that are scrambling to get water and electricity are going to be really pissed off.
Four years for crying out loud. If any of us lived there we'd all be insurgents or we'd have left the country.

The difference is if it were Republicans holding an early morning conference meeting to hone a new message they wouldn't come out of that meeting and tell the WP they're changing their message. They'd come out and state, loudly (i.e. on tv, in print, on Rush) that their message is the same as it has always been, regardless if it is or not. Then they would throw in a few support the troops and support the Iraqi's in for good measure and the WP and every every other media outlet would lap it up.

The truth is that the Democrats suck at politics....their hearts and brains are in the right places, but they are so clueless at the actual nuts and bolts of how to win political debates that the Republicans outmanouver them at every turn.