Murtha's call to withdraw and stunt support my theory
My theory in the last post was that Dems have invested in an Iraq War failure so much that a troop withdrawal might jeopardize it. The behavior of the Dems seemed then and even more now to be geared toward taking credit for any kind of withdrawal of troops between now and the '06 elections.
First, they try to pass a resolution demanding a timetable. The GOP passes their resolution without a timetable.
Next Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), a hawkish Democrat with distinguished military service comes to claim it is time to withdraw - or push to plan a withdrawal depending on the news source. Since Harry Reid made stunts fashionable, the GOP pulls their own stunt and forces a vote.
I won't try to make claims of who won or made gains throughout all of this, but the whole picture seems to be Democrats positioning themselves to take credit when troops start coming home. Barring the opportunity to take credit, they will certainly seek to minimize any atmosphere of success in Iraq if the troops begin coming home.
And now lo and behold, I have linked to a CNN news story that claims that there is a troop withdrawal plan that Rumsfeld is in posession of that will start some form of troops returning after the December elections. I had a feeling something was brewing with all of these games of political positioning.
From my perspective, the Dems have built a house of cards with several rooms in it: the intel manipulation claims, the Iraq quagmire, the high gas prices, the Plame leak and others. Each of these are still open ended in a way that could easily and quickly turn Bush's way. Since the Dems have chosen this 'house of cards' approach instead of a solid agenda with ideas, we can prepare ourselves for the claims of GOP 'dirty tricks' when the cards come down.
First, they try to pass a resolution demanding a timetable. The GOP passes their resolution without a timetable.
Next Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), a hawkish Democrat with distinguished military service comes to claim it is time to withdraw - or push to plan a withdrawal depending on the news source. Since Harry Reid made stunts fashionable, the GOP pulls their own stunt and forces a vote.
I won't try to make claims of who won or made gains throughout all of this, but the whole picture seems to be Democrats positioning themselves to take credit when troops start coming home. Barring the opportunity to take credit, they will certainly seek to minimize any atmosphere of success in Iraq if the troops begin coming home.
And now lo and behold, I have linked to a CNN news story that claims that there is a troop withdrawal plan that Rumsfeld is in posession of that will start some form of troops returning after the December elections. I had a feeling something was brewing with all of these games of political positioning.
From my perspective, the Dems have built a house of cards with several rooms in it: the intel manipulation claims, the Iraq quagmire, the high gas prices, the Plame leak and others. Each of these are still open ended in a way that could easily and quickly turn Bush's way. Since the Dems have chosen this 'house of cards' approach instead of a solid agenda with ideas, we can prepare ourselves for the claims of GOP 'dirty tricks' when the cards come down.
posted by All_I_Can_Stands @ 11:44 PM
12 Comments:
At 4:56 AM,
LA Sunset said…
"I won't try to make claims of who won or made gains throughout all of this, but the whole picture seems to be Democrats positioning themselves to take credit when troops start coming home."
Well, at least now when the Cindy Sheehan rallies start over the holidays calling for the immediate withdrawal, there will be a bunch of Democrats on the record as having rejected the immediate withdrawal. You won't see any of them that voted yes, in any photo ops with her, or capitalizing in any other way. They had their chance, AGAIN.
Victory? For the troops, yes.
Good post, AICS.
At 7:18 PM,
Anonymous said…
Actually, Democrats put forward a solid agenda with ideas in the form of the 2004 Platform. Have you read it? For the sake of being able to speak from direct knowledge, you should give it a read. Sure there's rhetoric in it, just as with the Republican platform. They're both ultimately sales pitches so rhetoric is a given. But if you can put your partisanship aside for the time it takes to read its ideas and proposals and give them some thought, you will see that we're all Americans here.
At 7:19 PM,
Anonymous said…
Seems the link broke. Trying again.
2004 Democratic Platform
At 8:37 PM,
All_I_Can_Stands said…
I heard their "agenda" during the campaign and reading this platform reminded me why they lost the election. It was filled with fluffy pictures of generalities that everyone wants:
We want to fight terrorism
We want more jobs
We want clean air
We want this, that and the other thing
It is when it came down to listing HOW Kerry was going to accomplish these things that it all broke down. It was either just as general or given his / their track record it just could not be believed. Look how many times you see:
We have a plan...
We have a strategy...
Then when you are waiting with bated breath to hear the plan or strategy, it is on to the next point.
Then when you read they want to increase the military and cut taxes on the middle class, you are rolling on the floor laughing that they actually think they will be believed.
Remember Clinton after 30 days in office: "I tried harder than anything in my life to find a way to cut taxes on the middle class but I couldn't"
At 7:19 AM,
Anonymous said…
I see you are unable to put aside partisanship even for the sake of aquiring knowledge.
Please show me the specific plans listed in the Republican platform.
You will see it is the same empty fluff, if not more so than the Democratic platform.
At 8:27 AM,
All_I_Can_Stands said…
I did not claim that the GOP platform isn't empty stuff. In fact I have never read it, so there may or may not be something there. Platforms are mostly meaningless.
I don't determine if a party has ideas based on their platform. I base it on what message they consistently convey in order to address the main issues of the day and whether or not their actual voting supports that message. Believe me, there are many GOP to criticize because they don't end up voting what their message stated.
Furthermore the message of each party is driven by broader categories of conservative and liberal. They often tell most of the story of what each party is about. I have not heard much from the Dems or liberal camp on how to address today's issues. When they do come up with something it is usually ridiculous or dangerous.
At 10:18 AM,
Anonymous said…
"I have not heard much from the Dems or liberal camp on how to address today's issues."
Then go read about here.
At 11:34 AM,
All_I_Can_Stands said…
ok, I read through the Dems website. I did not find any proposed solutions. Would you care to point them out to me?
Stating "we are for more jobs" is not an agenda or idea. Everyone is for more jobs.
Stating you are for affordable health care is not an agenda or idea. How are you going to provide affordable health care without robbing me blind by raising my taxes?
And aside from website generalities, what do the Dems propose in legislation? All I hear from them is criticism. While I don't read the congressional record, I do keep my ear to the ground in the news and I could not tell you a recent proposal (aside from the troop withdrawal broo-ha-ha) that a Dem has made that was serious and viable.
At 9:35 PM,
Anonymous said…
Democrats being the minority party in Congress have regularly had their proposals shot down so they never see the light of day and most people like yourself don't know about them unless you DO read the Congressional record.
Since October, here are some proposals put forward by Democrats that were voted down by the Republican majority, courtesy of The Congressional Roll Call records.
-Money to provide for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. (voted down twice)
-Increasing the maximum Federal Pell Grant award by $200
-Providing additional funding for title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.
-Increasing appropriations for Head Start programs
-Additional funding for part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
-Funding for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program within the Health Resources and Services Administration.
-Increasing appropriations for after-school programs through 21st century community learning centers.
-Providing a 6-month transition period for coverage of prescription drugs under Medicaid for the elderly whose drug coverage is to be moved to the Medicare prescription drug program.
-Amending title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide the authority for negotiating fair prices for Medicare prescription drugs.
-Establishing a national commission on policies and practices on the treatment of detainees since September 11, 2001.
-Providing enhanced eligibility for retirement pay for non-regular service members in Iraq
-Amending the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide tax benefits for areas affected by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma.
-Repealing certain tax benefits relating to oil and gas wells intangible drilling and development costs.
-Reinstating for millionaires a top individual income tax rate of 39.6 percent, the pre-May 2003 rates of tax on capital gains and dividends, and to repeal the reduction and termination of the phase out of personal exemptions and overall limitation on itemized deductions, until the Federal budget deficit is eliminated.
-Sense of the Senate amendment concerning the provision of health care for children before providing tax cuts for the wealthy.
-Tax increase on incomes in excess of $1 million to eliminate child poverty.
-Providing an additional $500,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2006 through 2010, to be used for readjustment counseling, related mental health services, and treatment and rehabilitative services for veterans with mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, or substance use disorder.
By my read, your boys in the GOP don't seem too interested in helping America, even when it comes to the most fruitful endeavor of balancing the budget. Democrats are the only ones to have balanced the budget in nearly 4 decades, despite being in power for only 12 of those years. The GOP used to be about fiscal responsibility. Those were the good old days.
If the GOP really were for more jobs it would stop giving tax cuts to the ultra wealthy and corporations and give them to the small business community, which provides vastly more and more stable jobs here in America than the behemoth mutlinationals who don't give a damn about Americans.
At 11:22 PM,
All_I_Can_Stands said…
well there are two that I like:
"-Amending the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide tax benefits for areas affected by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma."
and
"Providing an additional $500,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2006 through 2010, to be used for readjustment counseling, related mental health services, and treatment and rehabilitative services for veterans with mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, or substance use disorder."
At 8:59 PM,
Anonymous said…
Only two? Well, it's a start. :)
Still, there's a lot of humanism on display there. Trying to help children, vets, the elderly and balance the budget.
Revisiting your Clinton jab, he did cut taxes for the middle class and small businesses.
At 1:07 PM,
Anonymous said…
More Dem ideas and proposals that were shot down by Republicans. This time these are items specifically for homeland security measures.
From the 9/11 Commission, the topic of radio spectrum for first responders.
Bush team grade received: F
Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) was the champion of first responders, fighting all year for more money and equipment and even getting three bills to the Senate floor for a full vote. All three were killed by the Republicans.
Senate Amendment 147, introduced in March, was written to "protect the American people from terrorist attacks by providing the necessary resources to our firefighters, police, EMS workers and other first-responders by restoring $1,626 billion in cuts to first-responder programs."
"This is not the time to be cutting first responder dollars to our communities," said Stabenow, in fighting for the funding on the Senate floor. "We ought to be, in fact, increasing those dollars because when the terrorist experts talk to us, they do not say if we are attacked in the future, they say when we will be attacked in the future. So it is absolutely irresponsible to be cutting the dollars for our local police, fire departments, and emergency responders. We need to make homeland security a priority."
The bill was defeated 54-46, with not a single GOP senator voting for the first-responder funding.
Stabenow also introduced two measures to provide funding for interoperable communications equipment grants for first responders to, as the 9/11 Commission recommended, allow all types of emergency workers to be able to communicate on the same channels.
"This is not a partisan issue. This is an American issue," said Stabenow in July, when the first of the two bills was introduced. "All of us, I know, care about this issue, and we need to make sure this budget reflects the goals of making sure that our first responders are prepared, that all Americans are prepared, and that we are protected from terrorism in America. This is a crisis now, not just a nagging inconvenience. Our lack of interoperable communications is a crisis in this country."
Senate Amendment 1217 in July and
Senate Amendment 1687 in September
Both of these would have addressed those critical issues for emergency workers, were defeated without even one Republican senator voting in favor.
Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) proposed Senate Amendment 1202 in July, which would have funded "...urgent priorities for our Nation's firefighters, law enforcement personnel, emergency medical personnel, and all Americans by reducing the tax breaks for individuals with annual incomes in excess of $1 million."
That one lost as well with not a single Republican vote for passage.
Senate Amendment 1189 introduced in July by Charles Schumer (D-NY) and designed to fund programs for new inspections of air cargo.
"What good does it do to make sure all of the passengers onboard the plane are screened so that there are no explosives or any other weapons, yet allow cargo that would ride in the belly of the plane to not be screened 19 out of 20 times?" asked Schumer before Senate voting. "For all the money we have put into passenger screening, we are leaving a gaping hole alongside, and that is cargo screening."
It was defeated 53-45, with 52 Republicans voting against the measure.
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