Behind The Scenes UPDATED
Harry Reid made a statement that suggested he was willing to back off of timelines for withdrawal in the coming appropriations talks. What does that mean?
Congress being Congress, the immediate assumption is that Reid is caving to Republicans. And that's an assumption made for good reason.
The real question is what movement is occurring on the Republican side of negotiations for Reid to make this kind of concession? Anyone who thinks that Congress is going to go from supporting the war to ending it overnight is dreaming. Is Reid plowing the ground for the next step towards ending the war?
I suspect he is, and I suspect it's going to piss a lot of people off. Me included. I really wish the Dems would just simply take a stand and fight it. But the practical side of me recognizes that Congress is an institution of baby steps and, frustrating as that may be, that's the way the game is played institutionally.
Update: You can add this to the behind the scenes mix:This morning on the Chris Matthews Show, NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell revealed that Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, met “very recently” with the Senate Republican caucus to discuss their strategy on Iraq legislation.
FWIW.
“Petraeus went to the Republican caucus and told them, I will have real progress to you by August,” Mitchell said. The Republicans claim they told him that after August, they will end their support for the war. “They have told him at a caucus meeting as very, very recently, that if there isn’t progress by August — and real progress means not a day of violence and a day of sanity — that they will pull the plug.”
2 comments:
It's called enabling.
Well, perhaps. And I feel that way most of the time. But at the same time, Congress is a different kind of creature with this Congress having a bare majority of Dems with a Republican in the White House. So at some point you have to play the cards dealt to you too.
The problem with taking a hard line is that if you do so, you'll also lose about half the Democrats as well. And unless we can successfully cede from the middle of the country, that gets you nowhere.
Dems are saddled with an unfortunate fact. They are the majority of the population in a highly diverse culture.
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