Republicans are "hard" imperialists. Democrats are "soft" imperialists. Any other questions?  :-)   LC

Unfortunately this has been true.  A primary should create a fighter but Kerry turned out to be not very good at it.  A lot of it is the concervative and reactionary approach to it - afraid to screw up approach until it is too late.  This is also my biggest problem with Hillary.  She seems to - measured - in everything.  I want someone who is not afraid to go to the mat and do it from the start not just when there is no choice.

 

Have any Dem consultants been fired yet? 

I get the sense that Murtha is speaking for the military.  Nobody in uniform is allowed to say "It is time to go."  That would be insubordination.  Murtha always has been a spokesman for the military point of view, and now this.  If I'm right, it is very dangerous for the Republicans.

Oh please.  Do you really think Republican legislators fear their special interests any more then Democrats?  Have they passed a single piece of legislation stiffing their backers?  Was Bush really tougher than Clinton, who defied his party in innumerable ways?

 

The GOP had courage after 9-11 because their president had sky high approval ratings and they had all the money.  The Dems were scared for the same reason.  Change that dynamic, and you'll see the Dems grow hairy chests fast.

 

 

 

FOREIGNID: 68941
FOREIGNPARENTID: 68938
FOREIGNCOMMENTERID: 1926
AUTHOR: macdust
DATE: 11/19/2005 05:04:31 PM

Republicans and Democrats (in Washington) alike are hampered by a failure to fully recognize their changed positions and the changes in approach those changed positions require.

Compromise, deal making, listening to others, exhibiting courtesy toward weaker competing interests, etc., are the necessary tools of governance for those with genuine power. When used by those without power, they are seen merely as signs of weakness.

Attack, challenge, refusal to compromise or recognize the legitimacy of competing interests are tactics of those seeking power.

But, when those with genuine power use the tactics of the outsider and challenger -- and, worse yet, depend on fear (of their power) alone (as opposed to inducement and reward) to force those they see as weaker to act as they want them to -- which is in the interest of the powerful rather than in their own best interest -- they in short order are perceived as tyrannical and set the stage for insurgency. rebellion and disorder.  

Beyond that, Josh's Republican buddy makes a mistake that many Republicans make, and that this administration made in its expectations for a policy of "shock and awe" in the mideast, in over-estimating the effectiveness of fear when dealing with a weaker opponent.

Fear is not much of a motivator for those who have nothing much to lose. And when you use fear alone to try to get those who you perceive as powerless to do what you want and to serve your interests you are likely to quickly learn that while the weak may not have the power to get what they want, they almost always have the power to prevent you from getting what you want.

The Democrats in Washington may be slow to recognize their change in status -- but the people in the country at large whose interests they are suppose to represent are starting to see the situation much more clearly.

And they are the people the Republicans had better start learning to fear.

I don't have much to say on the topic as stated here, HOWEVER, the CENTRAL aspect of the last post on TPM that partially spurred this section is MARKETING.  

I repeatedly find the republican's marketing abilities mentioned in these discussions, but never do our liberal blogs take the next step.

We MUST begin a discussion on marketing the Democratic Party AND actually enact it.  

As a liberal student studying sociology, marketing, and the techniques involved, largely disgust me (esp. Frank Luntz). However, it is undeniable that the evolution of media forms and advancement in the understanding of popular opinion have created an environment where politicians are simply demagogues. 

To compete, we MUST take advantage of marketing; however, we MUST also counter marketing's often duplicitous nature with a strong statement of our ideals and values as Democrats

-bookman 

This is spot on, in my opinion. Murtha is well known in the Pentagon, and spends a lot of time there. He is also a frequent visitor at Walter Reed, where he visits wounded and recovering troops. He did not pull this notion out of thin air without any sense that it's what officers at the Pentagon and troops are saying privately. He's far too experienced and politics savvy to do that.

Bartcop asks, "How can the Democrats protect the American people when they can't even protect themselves?"

Many voters use politicians' behavior during an election as a surrogate for their expected performance in office. They expect elected officials to be able to recognize adversarial situations, identify enemies, and respond appropriately.

Democrats tend to be administrative and academic types, often moms, for whom conflict is to be avoided if possible. Voters really want someone who can fight when necessary -- the Captain Kirk / John Wayne stereotype.

When Dukakis was asked how he would ask if his wife were raped he responded reasonably. He shouldn't have. He was being baited, and those were fighting words. His answer should have been something like "You son of a bitch, let's keep my wife out of this".

I found the email Josh cited depressing, as I found Jane Arraf's post about the politicization of the Iraq discussion here depressing.

Josh's correspondent says that we shouldn't be surprised that the republican reaction to Murtha's initiative was aggressively negative, and focused on minimizing the political effect of what he had said.

Maybe so. 

But when I read and listened to what Murtha had to say, I heard someone who wanted to engage in a policy discussion. What should we do? What should we do for these guys under fire? What should we do to fix this mess?  

I read some commentary from elsewhere, someone who said just what Murtha had said--that the democrats were trailing public opinion, that they weren't leading (I remember now, it was Salon's war room) that they were still just weathervanes responding to public sentiment.

That's as may be.  It could be that the democrats have not acted to get in front of this issue politically. It could be that the republicans saying that we are going to stay in Iraq indefinitely, and that anyone who says otherwise is a traitor is an effective electoral strategy.

I don't know from that either.

I do know that we are in deep shit here right now.   it really doesn't matter who wins the argument. It really doesn't matter who gets to divide up the pork in the next election cycle. I have opinions about that, but, frankly, they don't matter.

Can someone please get a grip here?  Can the republicans trying to find a way to preserve their majority take a break? Can the democrats trying to angle for the best way to link the president to their opponents take a rest?

It's clear that the administration is not prepared to lead us through the Iraqi endgame. Murtha stepped up. Rather than dissing the people who dissed Murtha for stepping up, can we reach out?  Can we find a way to say to the people who are going to be here when Bush is gone--Collins, Graham--who aren't running for president that we are in the shit?  Can we find some way to step aside from gloating about all we had predicted coming to pass and just find an exit strategy?

I've said before that we already have a consensus--that the US needs to withdraw as soon as reasonably possible*. The US needs to get out with minimal additional damage.The whole point of our political system is that other branches can step up when one branch fails. The executive has failed us. Can someone please step up and deal with this growing crisis?

That's the queston, Josh, I'd ask your republican correspondent. That's the question I'd ask the people on the democratic side who are dissed for being weak. Sure, you might lose a damn election. Sure, the safe path to reelection isn't clearly marked. Sure, the president's done a poor job in creating this disaster.

But the time has come to step up. Murtha stepped up. Is he really all we got?

 

-------------

*I still think there is an unstated agenda of establishing a puppet state in Iraq--that this unstated agenda is the stumbling block in all this discussion.  But that just boldfaces the point that  we need to get the real issues on the table and resolved. 

'Are Dems wimps?'

Yes. Dems for the most part run a show called 'Rebuttal' while the Republican show is 'Attack'. In a sound bite environment the rebuttal often doesn't even register, and our political sound stage is filled with Republican attacks. This is why the Republicans dominate at the level of rhetoric, even while poll after poll shows voters don't support their policies.

 One purpose of these ferocious attacks is to discourage Dems from uttering any strong view, to push Dems to  confine themselves to rebuttals. In calling for an Iraq pullout, Murtha was an exception to the standard Dem strategy. The pushback against Murtha is a signal to Dems to stay in their rhetorical cave.

 As a liberal, it is incredible to me how wimpy Dems are. Dems act as if vigorous assertion of views and values is something to be ashamed of. I think Dem political rhetoric actively discourages moderate support, because it sounds so whiny and apologetic. The Repubs 'sound' confident and competent, though they ruin everything they touch.

 

 

 

I recall Dr. Frist saying of his Dem counterparts in the Senate that they have no agenda, no imagination, no ideas, blah, blah, blah.  Its all the GOP can do to prop themselves up when they have none of those things that they attack the opposition for.  It is their tell.  They can't reply substantively to Murtha, so they do everything to impune his character and tarnish his reputation.  Seen it a million times - we all have.

However, like in poker, once your opponents know your tell, you're fried.  Its time for the Dems to go all-in:  Dr. Dean and other operatives need to atttack from the flank getting in the trenches and playing the GOP at the game that's there (sometimes in the gutter is where you have to be).  Pilosi and Reid need to stay above the fray and show that they have an agenda, that they have the imagination, and they have the ideas that make for change in government.

The next 12 months represent the greatest opportunity for the Dems in 40 years to grab the center and do something special for the country.  And like they said in Chicago so many years ago, "The whole world is watching!  The whole world is watching!  The whole world is watching!..."

I am personally disappointed in Obama because of his voting record. He has essentially voted with the Republican line on just about every bill his constituency would have had him vote otherwise. I don't get it. What I want to know is why? If I'm wrong, let me know, but the voting record I've seen hasn't been that great.

In 1856, Rep. Preston Brooks of South Carolina attacked the abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner, and beat him nearly to death with a cane. For this he was a hero throughout the South.

This political impulse is obviously much fainter now than in the runup to the Civil War. But to the extent that this whiff of violence is detectable, it is the exclusive province of the GOP. So there is definitely an asymmetry: the Republicans have this primeval, unreconstructed, barbarian spectre they can conjure, and we don't.

EXACTLY!!  Especially since we are dealing with a marketing machine -- the right is nothing but one vast marketing system, starting with the direct mass mailers like Vigueries through the marketing and PR organizations like CRC4PR.com and MediaConcepts.com, all of them promoting the unified messaging provided by TownHall.com members (of which the likes of Maggie Gallagher and Armstrong Williams are content providers), all of them schooled by Blackwell's Leadership Institute and the Young Republicans/College Republicans ( a la Rove and Abramoff).

We need to do a much better job of brand development; Lakoff's educated us on framing, teaching us how to recognize the opposition's message for what it is, but Lakoff really can't help us build a brand.  We have to do that ourselves, build a stronger identity that lays out our positive differentiation, do it so that it cuts through the clutter, improves the signal-to-noise ratio.

Media has been part of the problem, too; we've tolerated for too long both a consolidation of ownership that ultimately creates barriers to our message.  We've encouraged for too long a corporatist drive to provide infotainment by taking away our marketshare instead of concentrating it on that which works.  (Note the management talking head from NBC last week whining that progressives don't listen to radio or watch television; we most certainly do, but we turn it off when media produces crap.  They notice, but they need to be educated; they seem to think our 50%+ market doesn't exist.)

So how do we do it, build Brand Dem and its own marketing machine? 

To me, it's just that the withdrawl motion was nothing but theatre and spectacle.  The Democrats, knowing they'd lose on party lines anyway, voted not against withdrawal but against the very existence of a bill, brought by a Republican, that never meant to seriously debate Murtha's ideas but, rather, was meant to attemnpt to unofficially censure Murtha and to force congressional Democrats to go, on votiing record, as pro or anti war.

it was just a political trick.  I think, or at least hope, that many votes against the bill were really votes against the notion that the bill was broiught up not for policy reasons but for political theate. 

Are Dems Wimps? Is the Pope Italian? Of course they are, that is why we have the ferocious debate in these columns. The wimpiness is institutionalized in the DLC. As far as I can tell the overriding understood raison d'etre of the DLC is to keep the Democratic Party in a permanently neutered state understanding and submitting to the demands of the corporate and wealthy elite and the right wing political expression of their interests. That is why for many of us to defeat the Republicans and the right wing, to change the direction of America, it is necessary to fight the Democratic centrists. They are quite content to continue losing elections and blaming Nader or the Greens or the left for their failures. One of the major disasters for the left was the ascendancy of Clinton and not simply because of his sexual indiscretions; but because he represented stripping the Democratic party of its principles and therefore its coherence. To give him his credit he was an incredibly gifted politician with great political instincts and judgements. Unfortunately that leaves a lot of us high and dry when he left the stage. (And in Clinton's case he seemed to make it a point of giving Bush as much political cover as possible, further neutering the Democrats).
   In terms of how to respond to Republican attacks, it is clear that Harry Reid is a significant improvement over Daschle. As Lincoln said of Grant, "he fights". This is almost as impotant as the political issues. Some of the fights will not be won but it is essential for the public to see the Democratic Party as believing in things so deeply that they are  willing to risk popularity to achieve them. I am sure Josh Marshall is much more centrist in his outlook than I am; but having watched him get onto some issues (privatization of social security, Republican corruption, etc.) and not let go, I have enormous respect for him. Nancy Pelosi is supposed to be liberal but she comes off as yet another Democratic Politician unwilling to  risk anything; unwilling to be anywhere other than SAFE. And of course John Kerry may have great personal courage but politically he does not. And a candidate like that is deadly for a party; his election loss sets the party back as even an effective opposition.
   Now what brings the issue to the fore now is the Republican response to the Murtha announcement; I do not think the Dems are hurt by the rather transparent Republican move. The times have changed and this sort of Republican maneuver will be seen i think as desperate Republican overreach to avoid facing the shitty reality of their stinking war. But, given Schmidt's incredible personal attack bringing up the overwhelming personal cowardice of the entire  Bush administration, a party that was more willing to fight and attack more would be able to benefit in a much more substantial way.

I think that the GOP response to Murtha means that the party is imploding.

It's a sign of desperation. It's a sign that they're weak. It's the sort of wolf-crying that can work over the short term, until people figure out what you're doing.

I agree with minimatz's post below, that the issue is that the republicans are still in a politicization mode. 

But what I'd ask us Americans to rally around, JC2, isn't Murtha's proposal so much as the need to have the policy discussion There's  a pent up failure to deal with this, a swelling boil  I thought Murtha might have had an opportuity to lance.  I'd said, somewhere here, I think in response to Daalder's post that his initiative could work--that Congressmen could go home for their breaks, hear from voters, understand how upset everyone is, and come back in January with a newfound commitment to finding a way out.

I was wrong. The Republicans chose instead to malign the patriotism of anyone who questions anything.

But that doesn't change the fact they were wrong to do that.

I'm pessimistic about all this; I don't think the president cares one whit about what happens in Iraq--not to our soldiers, not to Iraqis, not to anybody.   But I preserve the illusion that Olympia Snowe cares, that even John McCain cares.  It'll be hard to do this, but the numbers are shifting in such a way that a committed group of leglislators--committed not to the main electoral chance, but committed to what they were elected to do--could have a real impact in January.

I think an upswelling of concern from voters may have a positive effect.  I hope that an upswelling of concern here can have some small positive effect.  But, really, let's try to fix this. Let's not try to win it. 

Interesting thread, although not a particularly new one. Couple things pop up that always pop up that are boiling my blood ...

1. "Moderate" and "wimp" are not synonyms, sort of like "house" and "banana" aren't the same thing. In using the two interchangeably, or assuming all Democratic moderates are wimps, you are using exactly the same propaganda tool Bush used to connect 9-11 to Iraq. Moderates can be wimps, but so can liberals, and in fact usually more so. I need only remind everyone that Harry Reid is one of the most conservative members of the Senate Democratic caucus. As moderate as they come. Tom Daschle, on the other hand, had an impeccable liberal voting record.

2. Many of the leaders of our party do, indeed, go into a defensive crouch the minute they're attacked. But it isn't for lack of moral fiber. It's because they're old dogs trying to learn new tricks. They grew up in an era when all you had to do to win as a Democrat was put together the right interest groups behind you (or machine, if you had one), and engage in a little light debate with whatever genteel country-club Republican that happened to oppose you. You can't change overnight. It takes a new generation, and I think you're starting to see that develop now. But don't be too hard on your forefathers: The political world they cut their teeth in is just gone, but they're still here.

 

Murtha is speaking for the Pentagon: they've had it, simple.  And Murtha has middle america credentials.  The shrill mania of the push-back shows where the Republicans are now: in very deep doo-doo.  The Republican congress is in the process of splitting into those who realize that Bush is a disaster for the party and the country and those who are addicted to the Kool-aid.  This will get more intense as all the ordnance now arriving gets a target lock: Fitzgerald hasn't begun, neither has Able Danger, the torture stuff...I don't think the Dems are wimps, they're just unwilling to devolve for power.  If America is so dumb that it buys the Bush inversion, just sit back and watch the consequences roll in.  The Republicans have the power spiel down, but where has it led them?  Down the rathole of moral iniquity.  But there are Republicans with a conscience and with a deep sense of shame.  The party faithful will try to crucify them but it won't wash, just as Murtha only gains credibility from the attacks.  All the polarizing hooey will continue, but with less and less of the country's ear. This week has been the turning point.  Bit by bit, this country will re-gain its fundamental sense of decency, bit by bit, the executive conspiracy against the congress and the people will be revealed, and bit by bit, a new bipartisan coalition of the sane will emerge in congress to lead us out of this gruesome mess.  

Wow, is this an important discussion to be having. My take on it is different from those of the first twenty-odd participants. Most of you have been discussing strategy in making comments like How can we defend Murtha and other advocates of withdrawal against dirty attacks? In my view, however, while that strategic questions like that are important, they would largely answer themselves if we recognize what calling Murtha a coward means. 
  Yes, it's a gutter style of politics (hardly "changing the tone" of Washington politics, as the president once pledged). But it is not mere ad hominem. Probably the most important reason these Republican gutter attack politics work -- and I don't mean South Carolina in 2000-type bigoted smears, but on-the-record cheap shots in response to Democratic policy ideas -- is that many well-intentioned people honestly believe that it would be disastrous to leave the geostrategic stronghold of Iraq to anti-American or even terrorist control.
   Protesting that Rep. Murtha is a combat veteran does not really take away the visceral impact of the cowardice charge, because the Republicans are not saying that Murtha is or was a coward in combat, but that his policy proposal is cowardly by advocating a capitulation in a bitter and vital war with enormous stakes.
   Murtha may have left himself open to this charge by emphasizing the costs of this war and the incompetence of its decision-makers, which do not directly address the question, By leaving, don't we sacrifice our best instrument for exerting leverage on the outcome in Iraq, including whether al Qaeda achieves another Afghanistan-style safe haven? There are national security reasons for advocating deescalation and reasonably rapid withdrawal, but we have not adequately framed our arguments in these terms. (Who can add to this list?) Until we do so, emphasizing our anger at the "chickenhawks" will rightly smack of petulance, and the GOP will retain its reputation for putting our safety first.
   So go ahead: Attack the administration's mismanagement; tune our message delivery; let the public see our anger and let us take offense, without growing incoherent or sleazy ourselves, at GOP dirty tricks on Iraq and their selective or false retelling of wartime history -- But these behaviors desperately need to be employed only as the seasoning that finishes our argument, while the base of it will be an understandable, completely serious response to the visceral policy questions embodied in the cowardice charge employed against Rep. Murtha, a man who has served his country well and is doing so again by telling the truth now. He needs effective, but not merely angry defenders.
   One addendum: Yes, the majority finally and thankfully agree the war was a mistake. But advocating immediate or short-term withdrawal is a big step, and lots of persuadable voters will resist taking it unless they are carefully persuaded.

It's no such sign, it was a brilliant move. The Republicans may be desperate, weak and imploding but that's not what happened in Congress. The Dems were revealed as people ready to murmer and nod while Murtha was talking, but not ready to actually vote for withdrawal.

And the Vietnam thing doesn't work, by God. Dems always try to substitute physical courage for political. Not the same. Abraham Lincoln?

 

Oh Happy Day!

That giveth backbone to Democrats and hope to the world

Come Senators, Congressmen please heed the call


This from UPI's Martin Seiff says it all... Three  Days That Changed America

Cheney Wednesday night condemned critics of the Iraq war and told a supportive conservative audience from the Frontiers of Freedom group, "The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory, or their backbone, but we're not going to sit by and let them rewrite history,"
 


But the 73-year-old Murtha, a Vietnam vet himself, did not sit back passively the way Sen. Kerry did through August 2004 when he was endlessly mauled by Bush supporters trashing his Vietnam combat record. The Pennsylvania congressman hit back, and hit back hard.


In a pointed reference to Cheney's own failure to serve in Vietnam, he said "people with five deferments" had no right to make such remarks. If Kerry had fought back that way 15 months ago, he might have had a chance of winning.


As it was, Murtha has pioneered the a new attack strategy for Democrats in the next year's run up to the crucial 2006 congressional elections: Do not cower in a corner any more on national security issues, but come out swinging with both fists.

It took only three days to transfer the dynamic of U.S. national politics, but the consequences are going to take months and even years to reveal their full implications

This is an easy one once you understand the core ideology this hardline Republicanism.  Two or three tenets of the magical/occultic belief system have already failed them or been used up politically.

What they have left of the system is a doctrine of omnipotence of the Will.  Will in turn is action based on desire without regard to reality.

Their solution to the Iraq problem is exertion of Will.  Their solution to dealing with Democrats is exertion of Will.  Their solution to everything is exertion of Will.  That is in a sense why they have no meaningful plans for anything- all things yield to Will, the Triumph Of The Will is all the plan there is.  Alternative plans would be a lack of faith in the omnipotence of Will, after all.

The way to deal with an opponent who runs purely on Willpower is to hew closely to reality, grasp it fully, and be, youself, absolutely unyieldingly defiant/rejecting of the Willpower exertion.  Willpower's real (and only) power is to persuade the unresolved, the insufficiently psychologically resistant, to give way.  It's not bullying per se, it's about the psychologically weaker of the two parties being falsely impressed by the bluster of the other.

The adult dealing with an adolescent temper tantrum is a perfect illustration of the basic situation.  All weakness will be ruthlessly exploited.  But by giving way it's also easy to lure the practioners of the method into traps, at times.

Triumphalism of the Will is what the terms of the game are.  It's f-ing ridiculous how Democratic leaders give in to their weakness as often as they do.

Oh, for explanation of the tenets of all occultic belief systems, there's one online in the form of Evelyn Underhill's explanation of Eliphas Levi's book on occultism, the essay "Mysticism and Magic".

Couldn't agree more. 

Why couldn't Pelosi have just said "we're not interested in your political stunt - we want to have a serious debate" and then, instead of having all the Democrats vote for the resolution - had them simply not vote. 

Instead, our brilliant party has undermined Murtha's courageous stand and, even worse, handed the Republicans cover for their "stay the course" position.  You can bet your sweet bippy (for those that actually remember Watergate) that the next time a Democrat pushes for withdrawal the Repugnantcans are going to say "but you guys all voted not to."

Actually, Vic, old mate, the Pope is German.

Ovid hits the key point -- a cohesive and united party.

Which the Dems have never been, and never will be, under our current "3% growth every year" economy.  When the whole population wants to get rich or get closer to the American Dream they don't want to waste a moment worrying about the common good or common man.  America is a hell-for-leather pursuit of wealth and happiness, the American Dream.  Capitalist societies tend to be conservative.

Democrats have had to play to this crowd, this sentiment.  This earns them the title, Republican-Lite, and it is often deserved. 

However, as the 8% depletion rate of world petroleum supplies forces us out of a perpetual growth economy into a steady state economy, the hell-for-leather sentiment will be regarded as almost criminal.  Progressives will be the champions of the common man they have always been, but they will suddenly be the winning ticket at the hustings, because it will be apparent to one and all that we either make it all together or not at all.

I know, it sounds strange now, but by 2008 this will be the fundamental choice of American and Western civilization -- resource wars and wholesale class wars to allow that perpetual growth to go on for a little while longer, for a lucky few, or turn our full attention to an ordered economy that sees to everyone's needs.  Steady state economies are either feudal -- or socialist and closely managed.

Guess which of these two the GOP prefers to create? 

Progressives are scared right now to preside over a withdrawal from a failed military adventure, or to preside over an economy teetering into recession and worse.  This fearfulness makes it almost certain that frightened voters will elect a populist-fascist strong man in 2008.

Only bringing out these long-term realities, and working on solutions, will bring out the best in the progressive party, and the  American people. 

One should note what Murtha did say - he said, he is one of two Congressmen who want a draft for the Iraq war. His resolution said that we need more men in Iraq in order to win and that we can't recruit the men we need. During the debate he noted that the money for replenishing weapon systems is simply not there, and that we're cutting taxes while also cutting money for the army. We don't have money to take care of returning physically and psychologically wounded veterans.

To me, who watched the last hour of debate, Murtha's main message seemed to be that in the absence of any willingness of the nation to do anything real to win the war in Iraq, the only option is to withdraw our men from harm's way.

It seemed to me he was saying that talk is cheap - all this about giving the terrorists a victory, letting down our troops, affecting their morale, geostrategic consequences is easy to say, but we're not willing to back it with our dollars and our blood, we aren't mobilized to win this war, and that turns this into blather and rationalization.

It seemed to me that if the President came back from his visit overseas, and called a joint session of Congress, and said that winning in Iraq was the single most important thing facing America, that he'd raise any taxes and provide as many incentives as necessary so we could put half a million personnel and if necessary another half million and another half million again in Iraq; and this is how we're going to use all the personnel and resources to win; and outlines what constitutes a convincing victory, then Murtha would climb right on board (except perhaps for some very justified mistrust of this President).

It seemed to me that that was the Murtha challenge to the Congress, and the Congress utterly failed to rise to the challenge.

In a sense, both Republicans and Democrats are wimps. The good of these United States of America is something they let be overwhelmed by everyday politics.

The Republican party does not lack convictions.  Their problem is that their convictions are not held by the majority. 

Actually they do, that's why they are, what we call in the business, "in power," if the majority held Democrat opinions y'a wouldn't get your butts kicked every 2 years.

in public school in DC (in the 70's), I was a bit of a cerebral kid - into science projects and drawing and playing saxophone, stuff like that. And some of the other kids would pick on me for it - call me names, bully me around a bit.
There was one kid in particular, I'll call him Derek, who took it a little further and used to spit at the back of my head in class. It made me steamed, but I never knew what to do about it and so just stewed in my juices.
My father, also a pretty cerebral guy (go figure, right?), just told me, "Ignore it, and eventually Derek will stop." No such luck.
So for many months (seemed like years back then), I got angrier and angrier, but didn't know what to do. And Derek just got bolder as I continued to not respond, to the point where it was really, really gross (the spitting, that is).
Then one day, my youngest uncle came to town. He could tell I was upset, and asked what was going on, so I told him.
He gave me some advice ("But don't tell your father!") that I remember to this day: "Next time Derek spits on your head, take your hand, wipe it off, and rub it in his face - as hard as you can."
I did just that. Derek, who had assumed I didn't know how to stand up for myself, was shocked. He cried, in front of a whole bunch of other kids - who then proceeded to laugh at him.
We had to go to the office, and I thought I'd be in big trouble. But the principal just said, "You boys stay away from each other." When I got back to class, the teacher, who knew Derek was a bully, winked at me and smiled.
Derek never messed with me again. In fact, that was the last time anyone fucked with me, to this day. I guess what I learned is that if you exude the vibe that you can kick some ass if you have to, people will avoid trying their luck.
Ultimately, Derek had to repeat the 4th grade. I'm pretty sure he's a Republican these days.

The dialog between the pathetic Beltway Democrats and the enraged democratic base is much like that between the pathetic Henry and his wife Margret. What can you call someone who says that he'll have a position, "in due time" but a "timorous wretch".

KING HENRY.:

Pardon me, Margaret;--pardon me, sweet son;

The Earl of Warwick and the duke enforc'd me.

QUEEN MARGARET.:

Enforc'd thee! art thou king, and wilt be

forc'd?

I shame to hear thee speak. Ah, timorous wretch!

Thou hast undone thyself, thy son, and me,

And given unto the house of York such head

As thou shalt reign but by their sufferance.

To entail him and his heirs unto the crown,

What is it but to make thy sepulchre

And creep into it far before thy time?

Warwick is chancellor and the lord of Calais;

Stern Falconbridge commands the narrow seas;

The duke is made protector of the realm;

And yet shalt thou be safe? such safety finds

The trembling lamb environed with wolves.

Had I been there, which am a silly woman,

The soldiers should have toss'd me on their pikes

Before I would have granted to that act.

But thou prefer'st thy life before thine honour;

And seeing thou dost, I here divorce myself,

Both from thy table, Henry, and thy bed,

Until that act of parliament be repeal'd

Whereby my son is disinherited.

The northern lords that have forsworn thy colours

Will follow mine if once they see them spread;

And spread they shall be to thy foul disgrace

And utter ruin of the house of York.

Thus do I leave thee.--Come, son, let's away:

Our army is ready; come, we'll after them.

KING HENRY.:

Stay, gentle Margaret, and hear me speak.

QUEEN MARGARET.:

Thou hast spoke too much already; get thee gone.

KING HENRY.:

Gentle son Edward, thou wilt stay with me?

QUEEN MARGARET.:

Ay, to be murther'd by his enemies.

PRINCE.:

When I return with victory from the field

I'll see your grace; till then I'll follow her.

Isn't this Will business straight out of G. Gordon Liddy by way of Adolph Hitler?

Tom Daschle was for this war either because he was too dimwitted to see through Bush's bull or he was afraid that any other stance would cost him re-election. So Mr. Tough Guy voted to give Bush a blank check and give us 2090 dead (for nothing) and lost re-election to boot. Thanks so much Tom for the wimpy performance.