On the occasion of this brilliant strategic move, I think I will dedicate the following Shakespeare passage to Harry Reid and friends.
O Lymoges! O Austria! thou dost shame
That bloody spoil: thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward!
Thou little valiant, great in villany!
Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!
Thou Fortune’s champion that dost never fight
But when her humorous ladyship is by
To teach thee safety! thou art perjured too,
And soothest up greatness. What a fool art thou,
A ramping fool, to brag and stamp and swear
Upon my party! Thou cold-blooded slave,
Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side,
Been sworn my soldier, bidding me depend
Upon thy stars, thy fortune and thy strength,
And dost thou now fall over to my fores?
Thou wear a lion’s hide! doff it for shame,
And hang a calf’s-skin on those recreant limbs.
***
Keeping up pressure on Iraq serves the American people and it serves America’s best interests. Every pullout vote is agony for Republicans who know full well that standing behind the war will kill them in ’08. Snuffing the supplemental outright polls better and would make the Democrats look like they possess some fraction of a ballsack. Instead, by forfeiting decisionmaking power to the GOP our savant leaders prolong the pointless war and let the GOP own the pullout when Mitch McConnell generously decides that we should leave.
Republicans gleefully strung the noose and hung it on their own neck when they thought that their glorious war would cement GOP majorities forever. This idea that they get to decide when to leave dangles a golden opportunity for redemption that not a single one of them except Chuck Hagel (maybe) remotely deserves. I hope like heck that we have a viable alternative when the next leadership election comes around.
***Update***
Chris Bowers at MyDD supported the half-measures pullout bill because he believed that half was better than zero, apparently underestimating Dems’ ability to lose their spine in the clutch. Read Big Tent Democrat’s take on that debate, and a post on the compromise bill by Bowers’s blogmate Matt Stoller.
Also, I think that Reid’s defenders give Democratic leaders too much credit for good sense and strategy. Are those calf-skin shoes, Harry?