Rubber stamp

Golly.

What to think about Congressional Democrats deciding Tuesday to remove any and all timetables for troop withdrawal from their newer, safer, most-likely-to-make-Georgie-feel-better war spending bill? Spineless? Politically savvy? Manipulatively practical?

Why, "champion of disaffected Liberals everywhere" Harry Reid summed it up by exclaiming, "(N)o no one can say with any degree of veracity that we haven't made great progress, and this bill is further proof of that." And chairman of the House Democratic Caucus Rahm Emanuel exulted, "I view this as the beginning of the end of the president's policy on Iraq."

I think in this case I'll let Keith Olbermann do the reacting for me. In a seething, scathing commentary last night, the only pundit (with a few notable exceptions) who gets it right almost all the time had this to say:

Few men or women elected in our history - whether executive or legislative, state or national - have been sent into office with a mandate more obvious, nor instructions more clear:

Get us out of Iraq.

Yet after six months of preparation and execution; half a year gathering the strands of public support; translating into action the collective will of the nearly 70 percent of Americans who reject this War of Lies, the Democrats have managed only this:

The Democratic leadership has surrendered to a president - if not the worst president, then easily the most selfish in our history - who happily blackmails his own people, and uses his own military personnel as hostages to his asinine demand that the Democrats "give the troops their money".

The Democratic leadership has agreed to finance the deaths of Americans in a war that has only reduced the security of Americans.

The Democratic leadership has given Mr. Bush all that he wanted, with the only caveat being not merely meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government, but optional meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government.

The Democratic leadership has, in sum, claimed a compromise with the Administration, in which the only things truly compromised are the trust of the voters, the ethics of the Democrats, and the lives of our brave, and doomed, friends, and family, in Iraq.

You, the men and women elected with the simplest of directions - Stop The War - have traded your strength, your bargaining position, and the uniform support of those who elected you... for a handful of magic beans.

You may trot out every political cliche from the soft-soap, inside-the-beltway dictionary of boilerplate sound bites, about how this is the "beginning of the end" of Mr. Bush's "carte blanche" in Iraq, about how this is a "first step."

Well, Senator Reid, the only "end" at its "beginning" is our collective hope that you and your colleagues would do what is right, what is essential, what you were each elected or re-elected to do.

Because this "first step" is a step right off a cliff.

And this President!

How shameful it would be to watch an adult hold his breath, and threaten to continue to do so, until he turned blue.

But how horrifying it is to watch a President hold his breath, and threaten to continue to do so, until innocent and patriotic Americans in harm's way are bled white.

You lead this country, sir?

You claim to defend it?

And yet when faced with the prospect of someone calling you on your stubbornness - your stubbornness which has cost 3,431 Americans their lives and thousands more their limbs - you, Mr. Bush, imply that if the Democrats don't give you the money and give it to you entirely on your terms, the troops in Iraq will be stranded, or forced to serve longer, or... what, have to throw bullets at the enemy with their bare hands?

It is moronic! We have de-funded wars before, Sir, and this isn't even close to a true de-funding. No harm has come to our troops.

How transcendentally, how historically, pathetic.

Any other president from any other moment in the panorama of our history would have, at the outset of this tawdry game of political chicken, declared that no matter what the other political side did, he would insure personally - first, last and always - that the troops would not suffer.

A President, Mr. Bush, uses the carte blanche he already has, not to manipulate an overlap of arriving and departing Brigades into a "second surge," but to say in unequivocal terms that if it takes every last dime of the monies already allocated, if it takes reneging on government contracts with Halliburton, he will make sure the troops are safe - even if the only safety to be found is in getting them the hell out of there.

Well, any true President would have done that, Sir.

You instead, used our troops as political pawns, then blamed the Democrats when you did so.

(...)

For, ultimately, at this hour, the entire government has failed us.

Mr. Reid, Mr. Hoyer, and the other Democrats have failed us.

They negotiated away that which they did not own, but had only been entrusted by us to protect: our collective will as the citizens of this country, that this brazen War of Lies be ended as rapidly and safely as possible.

Mr. Bush and his government have failed us.

They have behaved venomously and without dignity - of course. That is all at which Mr. Bush is gifted. We are the ones providing any element of surprise or shock here.

With the exception of Senator Dodd and Senator Edwards, the Democratic presidential candidates have (so far at least) failed us.

They must now speak, and make plain how they view what has been given away to Mr. Bush, and what is yet to be given away tomorrow, and in the thousand tomorrows still to come.

Because for the next fourteen months, the democratic nominating process - indeed the whole of our political discourse until further notice - has, with the stroke of a cursed pen, become about one thing, and one thing alone.

The electorate figured this out six months ago.

The President and the Republicans have not - doubtless will not.

The Democrats will figure it out during the Memorial Day recess, when they go home and many of those who elected them will politely suggest that they stay there - and permanently.

Because, on the subject of Iraq, the people have been ahead of the media. Ahead of the government. Ahead of the politicians.

For the last year, or two years, or maybe three.

Our politics is now about the answer to one briefly-worded question.

Mr. Bush has failed. Mr. Warner has failed. Mr. Reid has failed.

So... who among us will stop this war - this War of Lies?

I was dismayed enough when our Democratic-controlled legislature "decided to strip from a major military spending bill a requirement for Bush to gain approval from Congress before moving against Iran." But this?!

Be sure to watch the video. Looks like, to paraphrase Jon Stewart, the Democrats finally have found their own rubber stamp.