The DLC is simply Republican lite.

Exactly, cscs, it won't be a discussion or anything resembling it. Ford will throw out some popular generalities without ever talking about anything specific. It'll be the sort of stuff that is intended to make us feel good and placate people, but that is ultimately meaningless.

Does anyone else feel like you have to be a starfucker to enjoy these sorts of guests?

Why do I think that I'm going to need the word "internecine" before the week is out?

and why would that be? maybe as in right-wing talking points it is just "DLC derangement syndrome" and it should be ignored along with the more familiar "Bush derangement syndrome". proper people do not contract these illnesses. they are illnesses of the dirty unwashed left.

Since the DLC are the Democrats that help Democrats from being seen as enslaved to the looney Left Ford should have interesting this to say at the Cafe.

I predict will be insulted and rudely treated and he will have some interesting and challenging answers for his detractors.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

I agree that, yes, some people will be shrill or rude (e.g. "looney Left"), and I also find it distasteful. TPM's no Kos, but it's still the internet.

But I'll bet dollars to donuts Ford doesn't mix it up in the comments, or even address them in subsequent posts. Get ready for the press release remixes, folks.

And "looney left" isn't insulting?

It is to me.

Dissent Protects Democracy.

if you have nothing to say and no answers to questions and arguments raised, you follow the Bush talking points and try to marginalize by name calling. We all recall how the serious center ridiculed all anti-war positions as stupid and disloyal. Greenbaum likes to shovel that shit.

I predict Ford will post an edited version of the speech that Andrew has linked to this post. You have to read through it a bit to get past the thank yous and shout outs. But my guess is that Ford's first paragraph will be:

As we think about the moment we find ourselves today and we think about the past six years, we all have our criticisms of this administration. We can all point to specific things and broader things, but the primary construct is that we have missed an enormous set of opportunities over the last six years to lead this nation and provide a new example for moderation, democracy, for freedom and for liberty here at home and abroad. There are many, many fingers that can be pointed probably not far from here in the same direction down at 16th and Penn. But the challenge of our party and throughout our history has always been not to blame, not to point fingers, even when the fingers should be pointed at ourselves, but to figure out answers and to develop solutions.

I would suggest we all read that speech from that point forward so that we can find specific points on which to question or challenge Ford, or ask for clarification.

Hmmm, interesting, Ed. Thanks.

Dissent Protects Democracy.

I can think of lots of reasons:  all best kept to myself.  <grin> 

aMike

I wonder if anyone will ask him "What have you learned from your loss?".   And if anyone does, whether he'll have an interesting answer. 

aMike

All these options would involve a sharp change of course in Iraq, withdrawal of most conventional combat forces and an unmistakable shift of responsibility to Iraqis themselves. But let's be clear. The "out now" option likely would compromise U.S. security interests, trigger a full-scale civil war, invite foreign intervention, provide an unprecedented propaganda victory for Sunni jihadists and Shi'a theocrats whose savage violence has been aimed at creating exactly this outcome, and abandon those millions of Iraqis whose suffering under Saddam Hussein will be compounded by more chaos, war and tyranny.

A precipitous withdrawal would also drive the Iraqi government further into the arms of the Iranians (Who else is going to offer them arms, supplies and training?), making Shi'a-Sunni reconciliation even harder and increasing Iran's regional influence. And it could definitely create a dangerous recruitment point and training base for the international jihadists who remain the key global threat to our, and the world's, security interests. A rapid and complete withdrawal from Iraq isn't really a "Plan B"; it's a "Plan Zero" for liquidating the whole Iraq engagement as hopeless.

This is from the article that Ford links to in his release to prove the Washington Times misrepresented him.

Note the Lieberman talking points--"precipitous withdrawal"--for example. Who exactly has proposed that? But the real problem is not that all the bad things he talks about will come about. Those bad things have all come about.

Here's his "Plan B"

Here is a "Plan B" I propose:

# Shift responsibility for internal security from the U.S.-led coalition to Iraqi authorities, beginning immediately, proceeding steadily according to the ability of Iraqis to actually take charge, and aiming at the withdrawal of U.S. conventional combat forces by (as the Iraq Study Group suggested) the first quarter of 2008.

# Refocus the remaining U.S. forces, mainly training personnel, "embeds" and special operations troops, on the more limited but sustainable missions of training Iraqi security and police forces, fighting jihadist terrorists, and preventing genocide.

# Keep pressure on the Maliki government or its successor to make the political accommodations to bring moderate Sunnis into the post-Saddam political order.

# Launch a robust diplomatic push to build regional and international support for stabilizing Iraq.

Bulletpoint 1 is the current "strategy." It's failed so completely that additional troops were brought in. And things are still getting worse.

Bulletpoint 2 is the current strategy, as soon as bulletpoint 1 is accomplished. Note that this is the position taken by all three leading presidential candidates, although he leaves out "force protection." It's hard to see how this is consistent with any significant reduction in force.

Bulletpoint 3 is Foreign Policy magazine bafflegab.

Bulletpoint 4 requires a new administration to implement.

The plan is, for the foreseeable future, permanent occupation until the US is forced out as in vietnam. There is no iraqi defense force--no air, no armor and no logistical tail. If the US leaves, any of the four adjacent countries, Turkey, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia can waltz in. The US is the de facto government. If the US leaves, there is no telling what will happen.

The catastrophic nature of the situation leaves politicians unable to move. And so the war will just go on and on, in the face of greater and greater opposition, because US interests are not being served here.

The only not catastrophic solution is to sit down in a room with those four bordering countries and come up with a joint security arrangement, and then withdraw. That's not possible until 2009, or the replacement of the president and vice president by republican realists. Withdrawing over the next year is the only hope we have of those countries recognizing that this is a tarpit that they have to agree not to enter--on their own. The US has lost all claim to being an honest broker, having betrayed everyone at one time or another.

But it would be nice to stop with the bullshit, and discuss what's going to be done with those permanent bases, what is the plan for an Iraqi defense force, and what constitutes a completed mission.

As they and Mcgovern were about Vietnam. As soon as we give in to thinking of war critics as the "loony left", we set ourselves up to be victimized by the military-industrial complex's next Vietnam/Iraq/War on Terror type crap.

Tom

I guess I wasn't clear, but I mean that the phrase "looney left" was an example of rudeness or shrillness. In any case, I agree with you, and would urge Ford and subsequent guests to accept that some posters will be rude, and to simply ignore them rather than using their abusiveness as an excuse to dodge legitiate criticism.

On April 2, 2007 - 11:28am DanielGree said:

Since the DLC are the Democrats that help Democrats from being seen as enslaved to the looney Left Ford should have interesting this to say at the Cafe.

The DLC are the Democrats that help Democrats to be enslaved by
the boys in the corporate boardrooms.

The Republicans give us "trickle down economics", the DLC gives us "trickle down democratic benefits", either way, its trickle down.

You won't find any Paul Wellstones in the DLC; I'll take the looney left any day.

unfortunately, there are self-styled centrists who have a very high regard for themselves, and not so much else to offer the discussion, who make a point of using some of the smear and brand tactics that Bush and DLC have used for years, to avoid the substantial discussion that the Iraq catastrophe requires. As recently as 2005, I think the washington Post was editorializing with all the pomposity and gravitas that the "center/neocon" nexus can muster to pontificate that while "some may describe the Iraq war as a debacle" they do not see it that way. The "center" seems to define "success" as the reification of their own thought as warped as that may be and as catastrophic as the consequences may be. were it not for the dead and wounded, the hopes smashed, the future tarnished, we could have a new production of the theater of the absurd.

Let's examine Mr. Ford's comment;

Former Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr., the new chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), yesterday said he does not agree with efforts by Congress to set a deadline for U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq.
"I think most Americans want to win, they don't want to see us leave early, and if we leave prematurely, we may create a broader set of conflicts and invite a bigger problem in that region than before leaving," Mr. Ford said.

But, win what, "the war on terror"? Is Mr. Ford endorsing the Bush false claim that Bush went into Iraq to fight terror? Or did Bush go into Iraq to gain control of Iraq's oil and thereby the Middle-East as well?

There was less terror against the U.S. from Iraq under Saddam!

Is Mr. Ford so clueless to believe that this war against the U.S. in Iraq can actually be "won"?

This is politics as usual, nothing more. And if it's the Democrats plan to stay in Iraq, we might as well stay with (Heaven forbid!) the Republicans.

You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

Thought I'd supply a link to Harold's campaign poster.

Lamar Alexander (R-TN) is up for reelection in 2008. Methinks the former Congressman is positioning himself for a run at that seat.