How's Obama Doing Against The Attack Machine?

Pretty darn good, says Glenn Greenwald:

Far more notable is Barack Obama's response to these depressingly familiar attacks. In response, he's not scurrying around slapping flags all over himself or belting out the National Anthem, nor is he apologizing for not wearing lapels, nor is he defensively trying to prove that -- just like his Republican accusers -- he, too, is a patriot, honestly. He's not on the defensive at all. Instead, he's swatting away these slurs with the dismissive contempt they deserve, and then eagerly and aggressively engaging the debate on offense because he's confident, rather than insecure, about his position:

About not wearing an American flag lapel pin, Obama said Republicans have no lock on patriotism.

"A party that presided over a war in which our troops did not get the body armor they needed, or were sending troops over who were untrained because of poor planning, or are not fulfilling the veterans' benefits that these troops need when they come home, or are undermining our Constitution with warrantless wiretaps that are unnecessary?

"That is a debate I am very happy to have. We'll see what the American people think is the true definition of patriotism."

Obama is not cowering in the face of these attacks on his patriotism. He's not remaining silent. He's welcoming the debate. Furthermore, he's not shrinking from the GOP slime machine, who tried to twist his anecdote about a soldier having inadequate resources in Afghanistan. You can see that it's a part of his counter-attack on those who claim to "support the troops." That anyone could credibly say that leaving Afghanistan to focus on Iraq wouldn't cause a reduction in resources is completely spurious. Of course Afghanistan is suffering.

As Sgt. Erick Gallardo put it: "We don't get supplies, assets. We scrounge for everything and live a lot more rugged. But we know the war is here. We got unfinished business."

John Warner is a total embarrassment for playing ignorant on this. What a sad end to a Senate career.

What's more, Obama is taking the fight to John McCain on the issue of lobbying.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Sen. Barack Obama said Saturday that the Republican presidential nominee in waiting, Sen. John McCain, has lobbyists as top aides and "many of them have been running their business on the campaign bus while they've been helping him."

The Democratic presidential hopeful also said McCain's health care plans reflect "the agenda of the drug and insurance lobbyists, who back his campaign and use money and influence to block real health care reform."

Excellent. He's seeing the gift of the McCain stories and is quick to put them to use.

The most interesting tussle thus far between McCain and Obama is over this idea, promoted by McCain, that we should not "bomb our ally" in Pakistan, and even if we do in order to attack leaders of Al Qaeda, we shouldn't say anything about it. McCain is coming off like the pacifist in this battle, and on the absolute wrong side of public opinion (it is well within the range of international law to attack those who murdered 3,000 Americans, and this dodge looks simply like an extension of taking our eyes off Afghanistan to stay in Iraq).

The first test of how Obama is doing in this tussle is in a special election in IL-14, Dennis Hastert's old seat, where Democrat and scientist Bill Foster is taking on Republican Jim Oberweis. McCain and Obama have lent their talents to this district. While I believe that Foster isn't exactly a flaming liberal, he is running on a change in policy on Iraq. Whether or not Obama's clicking on this counter-attack may be revealed in this March special election.

Shorter John Warner

"We have to suspend the rule of law because otherwise we'd crush the uniquely American spirit of volunteerism, in the way that the phone companies volunteered to break the Fourth Amendment."

Is he headed from retiring from the Senate directly to the asylum?

Warner's also going to vote against banning waterboarding in the Intelligence Authorization bill, by the way. What a very serious person.

Lieberman-Warner: A Bad Deal

Today the Senate Environment Committee began the process of creating groundbreaking global warming legislation that would result in a cap-and-trade system for polluters in the United States. It passed the first markup stage on a series of 4-3 votes. However, I'm sad to report that this is not a positive development. In fact this bill would be a massive giveaway to corporate polluters, allowing them to receive emissions credits instead of buying them at auction. And that's only the beginning of the bill known as, and this should be a tip-off, Lieberman-Warner:

"The Lieberman-Warner bill will reward corporate polluters by handing them pollution permits worth almost half a trillion dollars," said Friends of the Earth's Erich Pica, one of the authors of the analysis. "And that's just one part of this bill. The bill also includes hundreds of billions of dollars of other mind-boggling giveaways. The levels of pollution-rewarding giveaways in this bill are truly obscene."

In particular, Friends of the Earth's analysis found that the bill:

* Provides the coal industry and other fossil fuel industries pollution permits worth $436 billion over the life of the legislation; 58 percent of this amount goes to coal
* Returns revenue raised through auctions directly to polluters -- for example, an additional $324 billion would subsidize the coal industry's efforts to develop carbon capture and storage mechanisms
* Directs another $522 billion of auction revenue to low or zero-emissions technologies, which could result in handouts to the nuclear power, big hydro and coal industries, which are not clean (these funds could also be directed toward important clean technologies, such as wind and solar -- the legislation is not specific)

Lieberman knows what he's doing in dealmaking in the Senate, however, and he locked up enough support to get the bill through today's markup, going toe-to-toe with America's most unsung Senator, the great Bernie Sanders, who explains his opposition in this blog post:

On most issues, Congress goes through the time-honored tradition of working out compromises which both sides can end up accepting. I want to see all the kids in America have health care. Other members think the Children’s Health Insurance Program should not be expanded. We compromise on 4 million more children in the program. I think a program should be expanded by $100 million. You think it should be expanded by $50 million. We compromise at $75 million. That’s the way business is done here and in other democratic societies and there is nothing wrong with that. We live in a country where people have different political views and in almost every instance members of the Senate compromise to reach an agreement.

Today, however, we have a qualitatively different situation. I wish it wasn’t so, but it is. The issue is not what I want versus what Senator Lieberman or Senator Warner or Senator Inhofe may want – and the need to work out an agreement that we can all accept. That’s not the dynamic we face today. The issue today is one of physics and chemistry and what the best scientists in the world believe is happening to our planet because of greenhouse gas emissions. The issue is what we can do, as a nation, along with the international community, to reverse global warming and to save this planet from a catastrophic and irreversible damage which could impact billions of people.

In other words, we are not in a debate now between Bernie Sanders and anyone else. It’s not a debate between what I want or what you want. We are in a debate between science and public policy. And the views that I am bringing forth, to the best of my ability, are the views of the most knowledgeable scientists in America and the world: the people who, among other achievements, have just received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Half-measures aren't going to work, especially when they are also giving away for free what could bring in massive revenue to create that Apollo program for energy that we so desperately need. John Edwards has come out against the bill because it's not commensurate to what is needed. Here's what Brian Beutler thinks is happening next:

Now that it's made it through the subcommittee, though, the Lieberman-Warner bill will face the tougher challenge of passing through the full committee.

With the exception of maybe Lamar Alexander of Tennessee -- and that's an extremely large maybe -- it's likely that John Warner will remain the only Republican "aye" when America's Climate Security Act comes to a committee vote in weeks ahead.

So where does that leave things?

Well, Lieberman may have decided not to allow Bernie Sanders to play a constructive role in this process. But what he did do is bring Frank Lautenberg in on a big amendment package -- announced at the beginning of the hearing as a "substitute amendment" -- the details of which remain largely unknown. What is known is that Lautenberg voted to move America's Climate Security Act forward today.

The question, then, is whether or not Lautenberg will make a bid for for more -- whether his support is permanent or temporary. If he's thrown his lot in with Lieberman and Warner, then the bill has a decent shot of making it to the full floor of the Senate.

Sounds like Lautenberg needs to be pressured - and he's up for re-election next year. If he can turn, then Sanders can have a major place at the table in changing this bill's intent. And frankly, the chairwoman, Senator Boxer, needs to step up on this as well. I don't want to hear about "a good first step" when it comes to saving the planet.

Wake Me Up When September Ends

The Webb Amedment failed with 56 votes.

Last time around, in July, it got... 56 votes. This time Tim Johnson was back to vote yes, and John Warner turned his back on America and voted no.

So after all the calls, all the marches, all the pressure... nothing's changed.

Ever have one of those days?

A good majority leader would walk to the podium and say that the Republicans just squandered their best deal on Iraq. Now everything should be about hard deadlines for withdrawal. Make them BEG to have the Webb Amendment back. And make them round up their own 60 votes for a blank check.

Could You Possibly Hate America More?

To counter Jim Webb's dwell time amendment that gives the troops the rest and readiness they need to keep the military from becoming completely broken, Republicans are going to offer the legislative equivalent of a "Support The Troops" car magnet:

Speaking on the Senate floor this morning, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), an ardent opponent of a pro-troop measure to relieve the stress on the overstretched armed forces, announced he will propose a toothless, watered-down substitute to the Webb amendment.

McCain said he and Sen. John Warner (R-VA) have teamed up to put together a “sense of the Senate” amendment to express “very clearly that we all want all our troops home and we understand the stress and strain that’s been inflicted on the men and women in the military and the guard and reserves.”

The White House put all kinds of pressure on Warner to support this toothless bill, literally the most nonbinding resolution I've ever seen, and despite the fact that he AND the Bush Administration will be retired come January 2009, he bought it. Disgraceful.

After the White House acceeded to Warner's paltry wishes and offered an early troop cut (which isn't even a troop cut, that MEU was coming home in November anyway), his knees went all to jelly and he put up this side-by-side amendment that will give the troops nothing so much as a Hallmark "we're thinkin' of ya!" greeting card. It should shock the conscience of every American, the extent to which the Republicans hate our military so much that they'd rather see it disintegrate than end their catastrophic war.

Pop Warner

I thought that when John Warner announced his retirement, the pressure would be off of him to satisfy his President and his party, and he would be better positioned to vote his conscience. It turns out that his conscience pales in comparison to flattery:

Just when it looked as if Senator Jim Webb's troop readiness bill might pick up enough GOP support to reach the magic number of 60 filibuster-proof votes, we're now getting word that Senator John Warner is reconsidering his backing for it and may vote against it.

So reports the Wall Street Journal in a subscription only article. In a bit of a cruel joke, here's the reason Warner is giving for not backing a measure that would give exhausted troops more rest:

...in an interview Tuesday, the senator said he is "reconsidering his position" in light of the administration's willingness to move closer to him on expediting some reduction in U.S. troop levels this year in Iraq. "It took a lot of convincing to make the first units come home before Christmas," Mr. Warner said. "There is a lot of importance in that."

They did the meaningless thing I asked for! They like me, they really like me! I can't cross 'em now!

Warner also voted against giving nearby Washington, DC a voting representative in Congress, the only Senator of a contiguous area to do so. I guess since those DC residents aren't as - ahem - patrician as he is, they ought not to count.

(The common refrain amongst Republicans on this is that you can't give DC the vote because the Constitution forbids it and it requires an amendment. Of course, if that ever came up for a vote they'd vote against that too. They hide behind this notion that DC must be free of partisanship and therefore can't have voting members. Right, because the working-class citizens of DC would simply be able to bribe their Congressperson... oh wait, that's what every lobbyist in the country does, poor black people don't have the money to raise such a voice. This is purely about race - they don't want to see two black DC Senators down the road, which is not even what this bill provides.)

John Warner truly is Lucy Van Pelt with the football. But we can still honor our soldiers and pass the Webb Amendment. Call your Senators today.

UPDATE: Why am I doubting the fact that "GOP moderates" (all 0 of them) are weighing loyalty to Bush versus political realities? If that were the case there would still be a Republican Congress.

For What Noble Cause?

Apparently David Petraeus couldn't answer the one question that America seeks.

During the Q&A round at the armed services committee, Senator John Warner, the Virginia Republican ... asked Petraeus a pointed question:

"Do you feel that [Iraq war] is making America safer"?

Petraeus paused before responding. He then said:

"I believe this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objectives in Iraq."

That was, of course, a non-answer. And Warner wasn't going to let the general dodge the bullet. He repeated the question:

"Does the [Iraq war] make America safer?"

Petraeus replied, "I don't know, actually. I have not sat down and sorted in my own mind."

Watch it.



I agree with Joe Sudbay, that was huge. And if there's any conscience among our press corps, that would be the A1 headline tomorrow.

Warner's was the $64,000 question of this whole proceeding, and if you combine it up with Feingold's line of questioning, asking if the fight against Al Qaeda in Pakistan is more important than the fight against Al Qaeda in Iraq, so get a picture of a war of continuing choice, where we sacrifice soldiers' lives, the strength of our military, our global leadership and our moral authority, for absolutely nothing. It's the myopia of one military commander, and one President who doesn't want history books to write that he lost a war, that is keeping our troops in harm's way.

Chris Matthews certainly jumped all over this on Hardball tonight, suggesting that this is the pivotal question. If aiding and abetting Iraq doesn't make us safer, we have no business being there. We have our troops making it safer for oil companies to make deals with regional governments in preparation for the inevitable breakup of the country, but that doesn't make us safer. You can sit there and listen to one Republican candidate after another spinning the facts about the war, but in the end, the commander of the Multinational Forces in Iraq cannot admit that this strategy improves our global security. And as Howard Fineman said tonight, that's probably because it isn't. And the military leaders in the Pentagon, the realists, will no longer be silent about that.

This is all well and good but the Democrats have been impotent in the face of the Republican attack machine. I question what they'll end up doing about it save for trying to sell the inevitable end of the surge as a drawdown in troops, just like the Republicans are doing. Fineman rightly said, "George Bush is rather cynically trying to back the Democrats into the corners of their own conscience." There is a clever mousetrap being set, where the next Democratic President sits down to chaos and the Republicans blame them, and the Democrats don't really know what to do about it. They should make sure the American people know that they stand with them, for an immediate commencement to rapid withdrawal before the end of the President's term. There is no noble cause for which our troops are fighting in Iraq. They're just trying to save one man's ego. There's no reason to back down from telling the truth.

UPDATE: Marcy Wheeler thinks Admiral Fallon should be made to answer the question. As long as Petraeus is kicking it upstairs, I agree. And Matt Yglesias thinks that the time for the Democrats to end the war has passed. And I agree with that too.

In terms of actually ending the war, I think all prospect of doing so before 2009 was more-or-less signed away when Democrats decided to accept Bush's framing of the "fund the troops" question and grant Bush an un-amended supplemental appropriation after he vetoed the amended one. Challenging that framing would have been politically challenging, but possibly doable. Having done what they did, though, it'd be extremely difficult to turn around, and there's no sign of any inclination to do so anyway.

Of course, that's the point, and the shame of the thing. I think 2008 is going to be a horrible year for incumbents.

Here Are The Recommendations

Essentially, he's buying the John Warner strategy of letting a brigade go by Christmas, and then a reduction of the surge (which has to happen anyway) by next summer. We shouldn't make any other changes for another Friedman Unit (next March).

By the way, Warner's recommendation was met with howls from the Right; now that St. Petraeus is agreeing with it, do you expect a change in tone there?

Petraeus lets his slip show here. Defending the need to wait another six months, he claims that we couldn't have known what would have happened in Anbar Province, or in other tribal areas, or with repsect to Iran (another push for the drumbeat), just six months ago. That's pretty much because WE'RE NOT DRIVING IT. The "Anbar miracle" started without us, and we've had no impact on the political situation. We're similarly going to have no impact on the future of Iraq, whether we stay for 6 months or 60 years.

UPDATE: Also, Petraeus himself predicted the "Anbar Miracle" at his confirmation hearing, before the surge even began, suggesting that we had nothing to do with said "miracle," not will we be able to meaningfully impact it in the future.

UPDATE 2: The actual plan.



It's a graphical representation of Friedman Units.

VA-SEN: Warner Announces His Retirement

As has long been rumored, John Warner (R-VA) will step down from the Senate in January 2009.

Among those jockeying for position: on the Democratic side, the popular former Governor and erstwhile Presidential candidate Mark Warner. The Republican field, on the other hand, is in a bit of disarray. Election Central has the skinny.

And stay tuned for a possible announcement from Larry Craig that he'll resign his Senate post.

Sen. Warner wants Iraq pullout to begin by Xmas

This is a breaking story. John Warner, who isn't likely to run again and is therefore unencumbered by political payback, is apparently calling for the President to start a pullout of American troops in Iraq by Christmas.

"In my humble judgment, that would get everyone's attention the attention that is not being paid at this time," said Warner.

Warner said the president and other leading Bush administration officials have repeatedly said the American commitment to Iraq was not open-ended.

"The time has come to put some meaningful teeth into those comments -- to back them up with some clear, decisive action," Warner added.

It's unclear how large a pullout this would be, or just a symbolic one. It's unclear whether there's any kind of end date for the complete removal of combat troops here, or not. It's unclear whether this move by Warner would change anything on the ground in Iraq or help get our troops out of harm's way and end the occupation of Iraq.

But politically speaking, this is huge. It changes the narrative from "Dems in disarray, forced to acknowledge progress" to "GOP in disarray, some leaders calling for pullout." The NIE was the impetus for this, I believe. Suddenly, everyone will be asking GOP Senators and Congressmen whether or not they agree with Sen. Warner.

I think this is a big step toward the end of the occupation.

UPDATE: ABC has a bit more.

"I say to the President, with great respect," the 80 year-old Senator said at a press conference on Capitol Hill, "consider that you initiate the withdrawal." [...]

"I've tried to work and be respectful of the office of the Presidency," Warner told reporters, but added that after General Petraeus, the leader of coalition forces in Iraq, submits his reporton progress in Iraq come mid-September, senators should be "free to voice our own opinions."

Warner picked a number out of mid-air at his press conference: 5,000 troops out by Christmas. And he's not for a timeline for withdrawal.

Fortunately, the soccer-ball-chasing media is hyping this story, which means extremely little. They're calling it a "major GOP defection on Iraq."

The Straight Dope On Iraq

The buzz from Iraq is about Sen. Levin and Warner's report after another Congressional "dog and pony show," where they suggest that there is tangible military progress but no political movement. Levin went so far as to say this:

"The Maliki government is non-functional and cannot produce a political settlement because it is too beholden to religious and sectarian leaders."

Which is pretty much in line with a lot of things we've been hearing from non-propagandist politicians and so-called foreign policy experts.

But when you hear from the soldiers themselves, who aren't on the ground for an 8-day trip arranged by the military but a 15-month deployment, it carries a bit more weight.

VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.

I think the most dangerous part of the editorial is the one where the soldiers explain how the notion of an "enemy" is relative in today's Iraq.

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

This revelation comes at at time when the military brass continues to try and spin that Iran is the sole bad actor in Iraq, despite little evidence, to the extent that military spokesmen say things like "Just because we're not finding (the Iranians) doesn't mean they're not there."

And it happens every day. And Shiites and Sunnis have more fealty to their militias than to the population, and our continued support for them in their communities simply arms both sides in a civil war.

Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.

This is a great assessment of the country, because it sets the realities of the situation in a way that cannot charitably be seen as an element of "cut-and-run" defeatism. This is a truth that foreign policy experts know but refuse to say publicly. And so the lapdog media looks at words from people like Pollack and O'Hanlon instead of recognizing the truth.

UPDATE: Two provincial governors have been assassinated recently. That's 2 out of 18. The political turmoil is enormous.

Warner Watch

One thing I didn't notice before: John Warner voted for Sen. Webb's readiness bill. At one level, this may be just comity with a fellow Virginian's bill. But at another level, this could be a significant crack in the armor. If nothing major is done this time around, obviously these kinds of bills and ideas will be coming back around in September. Sen. Warner, who I always considered the key Senator in the GOP on these issues, has now stated his willingness to vote for - not just talk about - meaningful policy around Iraq. This certainly puts him in a better class than Sens. Lugar and Voinovich and Domenici, who are all talk. Or maybe they're waiting to vote for that supa-awsom "Pretend To Adopt The Pretend Hard Deadlines of the Iraq Study Group" bill and nothing else.

Warner was extremely quiet about this vote, so any Republican looking for political cover wouldn't have known that they could hide behind his vote. He just went out and did it. Didn't make a big speech or a conference call to reporters. Just voted to support the troops. Which is exactly what this quite narrow bill was. To hear it from Sen. Webb:

A clear majority of the Senate—56 Members – sent a strong message today in favor of ensuring responsible deployment cycles for our men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. I regret that we did not reach the 60-vote margin that would have allowed this amendment to prevail. It was offered in the spirit of bipartisanship. It was offered with the intention of protecting the well-being of our troops.

“A Republican filibuster kept this amendment from passing by an up-or-down vote. Americans are tired of this kind of posturing. The troops and their families don’t want to hear about political, procedural maneuvers. What they really care about are results. They are looking for concrete actions that will protect the well-being of our men and women in uniform.

“The question on this amendment is not whether you support this war or whether you do not. It is not whether you want to wait until July or September to see where one particular set of bench marks or summaries might be taking us. The question is this: more than four years into ground operations in Iraq, we owe stability, and a reasonable cycle of deployment, to the men and women who are carrying our nation’s burden. That is the question. And that was the purpose of this amendment.”

The admakers are going to have a field day damning those who voted against this (Sen. Cornyn, I'm looking at you). John Warner's up this cycle and he maybe doesn't want the popular Webb campaigning against him and maybe that's all this is about. But at some point, Warner will have to go public. He did so today, in a small way.

P.S. My prediction is still that this Pretend to Adopt the ISG Report amendment from Ken Salazar and Pete Domenici will end up passing, even though, if the President were to take the unusual step of actually listening to Congress and following through on the amendment's goals, would be the worst possible situation.

Many would like to reduce the U.S. commitment to something like half of today's troop presence there. But it is much harder to find a mission for the remaining 60,000 to 80,000 soldiers that makes any sense militarily....

The more we shift out of combat missions and into training, the harder we make the trainers' job and the more exposed they become. It is unrealistic to expect that we can pull back to some safe yet productive mission of training but not fighting -- this would be neither safe nor productive.

If the surge is unacceptable, the better option is to cut our losses and withdraw altogether. In fact, the substantive case for either extreme -- surge or outright withdrawal -- is stronger than for any policy between. The surge is a long-shot gamble. But middle-ground options leave us with the worst of both worlds: continuing casualties but even less chance of stability in exchange. Moderation and centrism are normally the right instincts in American politics, and many lawmakers in both parties desperately want to find a workable middle ground on Iraq. But while the politics are right, the military logic is not.

David Broder just threw up in his mouth.

VA-Sen: More Trouble for the GOP

This speculation is nothing new, but clearly the signs point to 80 year-old John Warner retiring instead of running for another term in 2008, and his stalling tactics are a way to get Tom Davis into the Republican nomination instead of a hard-core conservative:

Virginia Sen. John W. Warner has said little about whether he will run for re-election, but the 80-year-old Republican is giving clear indications that he will not return for another term and that his coyness is merely an attempt to help Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, a fellow Republican, replace him.

"There has been considerable discussion about the possibility that [Mr. Warner] might delay an announcement of candidacy, then announce he wasn't going to run, to allow Congressman Tom Davis to build up at the beginning of the campaigns, which would give Davis an advantage," said Morton C. Blackwell, chairman of the Virginia's Republican National Committee and leader of the conservative Leadership Institute.

If their Warner steps down, it's entirely possible that our Warner, the former Viriginia governor Mark, will run. And he is very popular, and would be a considerable favorite.

With Jeanne Shaheen being wooed to run in what would be a very good chance in New Hampshire, and Bob Kerrey possibly making a comeback in Nebraska, in addition to the good chances by Mark Udall in Colorado and Tom Allen in Maine, the Democrats look good to pick up some Senate seats in '08. Recruitment has taken a hit in Oregon and North Carolina, as popular Representatives like Peter DeFazio and Brad Miller didn't want to give up their new-found power in the House to take the step up and make a Senate challenge. Still, we're in decent shape.

A Smart Antiwar Movement Would Target John Warner

We're going to see a lot of kabuki theater throughout the summer with regard to Iraq. The Democrats are going to push some more bills to the floor that would de-authorize the 2002 war resolution, for example, or ensure troop readiness before deployment. They're not likely to pass with a veto-proof majority. Republicans are going to complain that Democrats are criticizing the surge and it hasn't even started yet (the surge's start date will be sometime in January 2009, so shut your trap until then). And the media won't give a damn until September and the report from the battlefield.

Which leaves the question of what the antiwar movement, in conjunction with the majority of Americans who want this occupation to end, should do between now and then. I think the answer is clear - they need to pull a Camp Casey on John Warner.

Warner is an elder statesman in the Republican Party, and on military issues he is often seen as a bellweather by the media. Since politicians in both parties take their cues from that media, a flip in position by Warner on the war would probably cause a crumbling in support. This AP story, which shows how Warner has tried to play it both ways on the war, is indicative of the CW.

For months, Sen. John Warner has been looked upon as the man who could — at any moment — tip the Iraq debate on Capitol Hill because of his influence on a Republican caucus growing increasingly uneasy about the war.

But since October, when he declared that the war was "drifting sideways" and expressed grave concerns about the mounting death toll, the Virginia Republican has presented only a mild challenge to President Bush's policy. Warner has opposed binding legislation on troop deployments. And at the behest of his party's leaders, he's voted against advancing his own proposal registering skepticism on the U.S. military strategy.

His strongest action to date was legislation that would restrict U.S. aid to Iraq if Baghdad fails to implement certain political and security changes. At White House direction, Warner agreed to let the president waive the requirement.

Now, with Bush's troop buildup in Iraq not showing the results many hoped, Warner said in an interview he is willing to stick by Bush at least until August after visiting troops in Baghdad.

"Following that, I will come back and publicly more fully discuss my views," he said.

He's been allowed to kick the can down the road because there hasn't been a lot of pressure exerted on him. But he's coming into a re-election year. He sees the winds shifting in Virginia with the victory of Jim Webb in 2006. He's trying to thread the needle between a need to follow a rational course on Iraq and remain loyal to his party at the same time. There's no reason he should be allowed to do so. You have to pick a side. In the interview, he actually said this:

Last week, Warner said he did not think he backed down too easily and he continues to keep heat on the president's policies. He noted at least two private meetings with Bush in which he expressed his concerns about the war.

Warner also pointed to legislation he wrote, added to the 2007 war spending bill, that allows Bush to condition U.S. aid on Baghdad's ability to meet certain benchmarks, if he wants to do so.

"I think some of the steps I've taken were slightly bold," he said. "Maybe not as confrontational as some of the measures that were rejected, but I don't hesitate to take the steps that I feel are in the best interest of the country, the security of the country, and the uniformed (service members). Absolutely not."

John Warner. Slightly Bold for America.

Clearly, Warner would provide cover to other Republicans to break with the White House. Even though that's simply conventional wisdom, I do believe it's the view of the media, which would pipe that across the nation and would particularly have an audience on Capitol Hill. When John Murtha broke on the war it became front-page news for weeks and energized the antiwar sentiment in the country. Support for the policy has never recovered, but the Congress has lagged far behind the public. A Warner split would galvanize the nation. And I believe he's the only public figure in the Republican Party that would have such an impact.

I don't know if it's even possible to pressure him, but it certainly would be more hopeful than pressuring the President, who is far more isolated. If he sees an antiwar movement in his face every day for the entire summer, perhaps he can be moved to vote his conscience. He should not be allowed to remain silent on the biggest issue facing the country for three months until he's ready to be slightly bold once again. Fire up, Virginia. It's time for Warner to make a decision.

Election News You Can Use

A mini-roundup:

• The only reason that you would know Tommy Thompson was running for President was the fact that he stepped in it yesterday by praising Jews for, essentially, being money-grubbing Jews. He kept insisting that it was a compliment, that he was just saying that Jews were great businessmen. You mean like Shylock? This isn't offensive, it's just clueless. He should join Joe Biden in the foot-in-mouth primary.

• If there were one Congressional seat that Democrats had to leave open, I would offer that it should be Duncan Hunter's open seat. It's a tough red district, and even though open seats are attractive, the fact that Hunter's son is running, and that he may be over in Iraq DURING the election, makes him almost unassailable.

• I really hope Brad Miller runs for Senate in North Carolina against Liddy Dole. Being only 10 points down a year and a half out, and with Dole at 44%, makes it a prime opportunity. Miller is a netroots hero, and really understands how to be a proud Democrat in North Carolina and not back down.

• Sen. John Warner raised five hundred dollars for the whole quarter? That's the kind of money you raise if you're not raising money and somebody gives you some by accident. I don't think he's running again, and if his namesake Mark Warner runs, that seat's going to flip.

• In another case of Democrats who came very close in 2006 who will run again in 2008, Dr. Victoria Wulsin will challenge Mean Jean Schmidt in OH-02. This is the best way for a challenger to defeat an incumbent, by raising their profile first, and then running to win the second time.

• The other shoe is dropping for Rep. John Doolittle. A former senior staffer to Doolittle, Kevin Ring, abruptly resigned his job as a lobbyist yesterday. Ring also worked for Jack Abramoff from 2000 to 2004, and he was basically Abramoff's way to get to Doolittle. After this trail appeared to have gone cold, this is a major sign that it's heating up again:

As The Politico notes, Ring seems poised to follow the path of other aides who've pled guilty in the Abramoff scandal -- pleading guilty to lesser charges in return for delivering their former bosses to investigators. Ex-Rep. Bob Ney's (R-OH) former chief of staff Neil Volz, who also worked with Ring with Abramoff and then later at Barnes & Thornburg, resigned abruptly from that firm in January last year. He pled guilty to corruption charges in May, agreeing to cooperate and implicating Ney.

Of course, another repeat candidate, Charlie Brown, is challenging Doolittle, and he raised over $100,000 in the first quarter, and since Doolittle has been busy erasing massive debt, holds a $200,000 cash-on-hand advantage. Of course, if things keep going the same way for Doolittle, he'll be spending the 2008 election in court.

Prepare for a Filibuster-Proof Majority

If the Republicans want to keep talking like they want to end the war but block even the debate about stopping it, they're doomed to the minority for a long, long time. People like John Warner and Chuck Hagel, who filibustered THEIR OWN resolution, are simply terrified of offending their Dear Leader of a President. Think Progress has the list of names of those who talk the talk but refuse to walk the walk.

– Sen. John Warner (R-VA): “Sen. John Warner (R-VA) will introduce a resolution today ‘making clear that he does not support the President on increasing the troop levels in Iraq’ and calling escalation ‘a mistake,’.”

– Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE): “It’s Alice in Wonderland. … I’m absolutely opposed to sending any more troops to Iraq. It is folly.” (Cosponsored Warner resolution.)

– Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR): “This is the president’s Hail Mary pass. … We are extending an ineffective tactic to further the status quo.” (Cosponsored Warner resolution.)

– Sen. John Sununu (R-NH): “Sen. John Sununu told CNN Tuesday he will not support President Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,000 U.S. troops to Iraq, although he hasn’t yet decided whether to back a Democratic resolution opposing the move.”

– Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME): “We should not place more American servicemen and women in harm’s way to instill a peace that the Iraqis are not willing to seek for themselves.” (Cosponsored Warner resolution.)

– Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS): “I do not believe that sending more troops to Iraq is the answer. … Iraq requires a political rather than a military solution.”

– Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA): “We’re all looking for a plan that will work. … The current plan is not working, and 21,500 additional troops — it’s a snowball in July. It’s not going to work.“

There's going to be a debate on Iraq, no question about it. These hypocrites are only delaying the inevitable. But in the process, they've told the whole country that they support the President's plan for Iraq. They can SAY whatever they want, but ultimately that's what this comes down to. They are in favor of this President having a completely free hand in determining military matters, without even so much as questioning from the legislative branch.

This is the exact opposite of what the American people want. They want the Congress to stop this quagmire. Not only that, the troops themselves have no belief in this escalation and think it will fail.

"To be honest, it's going to be like this for a long time to come, no matter what we do," said Hardy, 25, of Atlanta. "I think some people in America don't want to know about all this violence, about all the killings. The people back home are shielded from it; they get it sugar-coated."

While senior military officials and the Bush administration say the president's decision to send more American troops to pacify Baghdad will succeed, many of the soldiers who're already there say it's a lost cause.

"What is victory supposed to look like? Every time we turn around and go in a new area there's somebody new waiting to kill us," said Sgt. 1st Class Herbert Gill, 29, of Pulaski, Tenn., as his Humvee rumbled down a dark Baghdad highway one evening last week. "Sunnis and Shiites have been fighting for thousands of years, and we're not going to change that overnight."

"Once more raids start happening, they'll (insurgents) melt away," said Gill, who serves with the 1st Infantry Division in east Baghdad. "And then two or three months later, when we leave and say it was a success, they'll come back."

We're running a counterinsurgency strategy against a civil war, meaning we have to take up sides in the conflict and consider the other side the insurgents. This is exactly why the Mahdi army is sitting it out and waiting for the US troops to do their dirty work for them.

The U.S. military drive to train and equip Iraq's security forces has unwittingly strengthened anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, which has been battling to take over much of the capital city as American forces are trying to secure it.

U.S. Army commanders and enlisted men who are patrolling east Baghdad, which is home to more than half the city's population and the front line of al-Sadr's campaign to drive rival Sunni Muslims from their homes and neighborhoods, said al-Sadr's militias had heavily infiltrated the Iraqi police and army units that they've trained and armed.

"Half of them are JAM. They'll wave at us during the day and shoot at us during the night," said 1st Lt. Dan Quinn, a platoon leader in the Army's 1st Infantry Division, using the initials of the militia's Arabic name, Jaish al Mahdi. "People (in America) think it's bad, but that we control the city. That's not the way it is. They control it, and they let us drive around. It's hostile territory."

(by the way, both of those stories are from the great Tom Lasseter, one of the best journalists working in Iraq today)

But of course, there's no reasoning with Senators who know these arguments, who EMPLOY these arguments, and who then vote in the exact opposite fashion. There's only one thing to do, and that's to make sure that everyone knows about the dishonesty of these men and women, every day until they're up for re-election. They will not survive being yoked to Mr. 32%, and they will certainly not survive while giving up their Constitutional responsibility to act as a co-equal branch of government. Their actions yesterday tell the country that they are not necessary. The voters will tell them the same son enough.

Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

I wasn't too thrilled about the watering down of a nonbinding proposal expressing dissatisfaction with the President's escalation plan for Iraq. Fortunately, there's always the Republican Party to save the day.

Just now, in an early test vote, EVERY REPUBLICAN except for Susan Collins voted against starting debate on the nonbinding resolutions. This includes Sen. Warner, AUTHOR of the proposal, and Sen. Hagel, arguably the most vocal antiwar critic in the entire Senate (it's all talk, as I've said many times... where's my Hagel troll now?). The Republicans had to protect their Preznit at all costs, so instead of allowing through a resolution which would have actually recommitted to Bush's Iraq policy, they shut it down. Harry Reid is apoplectic about it, and threatening to attach it to every appropriations bill coming down the pike. He gets to yell about how the Republicans don't want to talk about the war, and how the Democrats are trying to stop it.

This is brilliant. Thank you Republicans, for saving the Democrats from themselves, and framing this debate as between Democrats who want to end the war and Republicans who want to stop all debate on it. This will only make the American people angrier, and stiffen the resolve of Democrats to put together a bill with some teeth. This brings us CLOSER to ending the war.

UPDATE: Republicans are literally running away from the debate on Iraq. Well, congratulations, that little filibuster means you'll have to keep running, right into smaller and smaller minorities in 2008.

Spinegold

I mentioned earlier how dramatic it would be to see Sen. Johnson come back to the Senate to cast a vote against the war in Iraq. It would be nice if that vote was an actual opposition vote, instead of this nonsensical empty resolution, one not worthy of even gracing the halls of the Senate with its presence.

Unfortunately, the new Warner-Levin resolution that many Democrats are pushing is flawed and unacceptable. It rejects the surge, but it also misunderstands the situation in Iraq and endorses the President’s underlying approach. It’s basically a back-door authorization of the President’s misguided policies, and passing it would be a big mistake. Under the guise of constructive criticism, the Warner-Levin resolution signs off on the President continuing indefinite military operations in Iraq that will not address the fundamental political challenges in Iraq, and that continue to distract us from developing a comprehensive and global approach to the threats that face our nation.

Here’s a link to the resolution so everyone knows what we’re talking about. I’m going to pass over the first finding, which salutes the President as "Commander in Chief." And I’m not going to focus on finding (16), which salutes the muddled and wishy-washy report of the Iraq Study Group as "valuable." Instead, I’m going to focus on section 22 of the findings, which is nothing short of an endorsement of the status quo in Iraq and that is simply unacceptable. It rejects exactly what is most needed in Iraq – an "immediate reduction in, or withdrawal of, the present level of forces." If you vote for this resolution, you are voting against redeploying troops from Iraq. This resolution doesn’t fix the administration’s failed Iraq policy – it just takes us back to where we were before the escalation. It’s not enough to reject the "surge" if you aren’t willing to support a plan for redeploying our troops.

It’s all downhill from there in (b)2. The resolution goes on to support "continuing[ing] vigorous operations in Anbar province, specifically for the purpose of combating an insurgency." Apparently, some people think that our troops should be involved in putting down the Sunni insurgency in western Iraq. Actually, the President’s policy of maintaining a massive, open-ended military presence in Iraq has been inflaming the insurgency in that country from the start. I support the idea of targeted counter-terrorism missions to take out terrorist elements in Iraq, but we shouldn’t ask our brave troops to remain there to put down an Iraqi insurgency any more than we can expect them to end Shi’ite-Sunni sectarian conflict in Baghdad.

That’s why I introduced legislation this week to use Congress’s power of the purse to end our military involvement in Iraq. I was greeted with a tremendous response from this community. I’m extremely grateful for it because it was evidence of how badly change is both wanted and needed. But how does the Warner/Levin resolution change anything? We owe it to ourselves to demand action that will bring about change in Iraq, not take us back to a failed status quo.

Of course, he's just grandstanding because he wants to run for President. Oh wait, he isn't.

Chris Dodd will also oppose this nonbinding farce of a bill, and good for him.

This legislation, if you read it, authorizes the President (in a nonbinding sort of way) to continue the war. In fact, it endorses the worst kind of compromise: don't escalate but don't leave. In other words, do exactly what's been getting Americans killed and turning Iraq into a hell hole for the last four years.

We've failed Iraq and we're about to compound the mistake by bombing Iran (why do you think all the USAF jets and aircraft carriers are there?), and Sens. Levin and Warner are patting themselves on the back for a resolution that allows this foreign policy nightmare to continue?

I support Sen. Feingold and I am through thinking strategically about this, i.e. the symbolic significance of an opposition vote, or how to get Republicans on board, or whatever. Iraq is over and it needs to be brought to a conclusion. If Republicans want to yoke themselves to Iraq, have at it. There should be a vote a day until this is over. And the votes should mean something.

The Meaningless Nonbinding Self-Satisfactory Bill Lives!

The big story this morning was that Republicans were desperate to stop the Senate's nonbinding resolution on Iraq, and were scrambling to come up with their own resolutions to divide the caucus and ensure nothing too divisive would pass. Sure, there were the usual quotes of Senators acting "concerned" and "worried" and "troubled," but really that's what the story was about. For some reason the Bush Administration really doesn't want a nonbinding resolution to pass. Probably because the press, who is as silly as they are, would treat something with no real power as a "stinging rebuke." I understand that sometimes you have to work within the system, but this is ridiculous.

And it gets even more ridiculous, as Sens. Levin and Warner have agreed to compromise on their competing nonbinding resolutions, virtually ensuring that they will get enough votes to break a filibuster and pass it. I agree with putting up a vote both to see where people stand, forcing Republicans to choose between party and country, and as part of a "kitchen sink" strategy with more and more bills coming down the pike. But on its own merits, this nonbinding thing is crap, and that two nonbinding resolutions put together represents some sort of "breakthrough" is baffling. 0 + 0 = 0.

Now the only competing measure will be one pushed by McCain and Graham, calling for specific benchmarks the Iraqis have already shown they can't handle.

The kind of thinking in the Senate that believes a nonbinding resolution will end the Iraq war must be the same kind of thinking that believes Iraq won't be an issue in the 2008 election. I don't know what country these Senators are living in sometimes.

There are actual ways to stop the war; they've been well-documented. There's something almost poetic in the fact that, on the day after Sen. Feingold runs a classroom seminar on the powers of the legislative branch during wartime, the same legislators make a "breakthrough" on what amounts to a strongly worded letter to the most obstinate man in the history of politics.

There are actual ways to stop the war; they've been well-documented. There's something almost poetic in the fact that, on the day after Sen. Feingold runs a classroom seminar on the powers of the legislative branch during wartime, the same legislators make a "breakthrough" on what amounts to a strongly worded letter to the most obstinate man in the history of politics. Sen. Obama figured it out. Reps. like Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee and Maxine Waters Jack Murtha have figured it out. Netroots heroes like Patrick Murphy and Jerry McNerney, who signed on as co-sponsors to the bills from the aforementioned Representatives, have figured it out. They're either strong-willed people or those who haven't caught DC disease yet.

Levin and Warner are, well, the opposite.

Nonbinding to victory!