House Dem Leadership's Muddled Message On Iraq Bill

[babylonsister]

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/may/23/house_dems_mixed_message_on_iraq_bill

House Dem Leadership's Muddled Message On Iraq Bill
By Greg Sargent

Atrios makes some strong points in arguing that Congressional Dems should vote against the no-timelines Iraq War funding bill:

Right now they've established the worst of all worlds: they appear to have lost; they've done nothing to halt the war; they've put up a bogus bill which if they support will allow conservative Republicans to continue to screech while letting Republicans in swing districts vote for it and claim they've done something to tie the president's hands. If this is the bill, let it be a Republican bill.

On that score, it's worth noting that the Dem leadership still hasn't figured out what its messaging should be here. Dem Rep. Rahm Emanuel, for instance, is out there praising the effort as "the beginning of the end of the President's policy on Iraq," and Dem Senate leader Harry Reid has made similar noises. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is so disappointed that she's voting against the bill. If this is the successful effort Emanuel and Reid claim it is, why is Pelosi saying she may vote against it?

The Dems -- reflexively -- want to claim some measure of victory here. After all, you have to "win," otherwise D.C. pundits will call you a loser. But as a Dem House staffer remarked to me earlier today, why bother declaring victory here at all? It wasn't a victory. The President basically got his way, and the Dems didn't. And that's fine -- let that be the story. As the staffer suggests, why not acknowledge that this is a crappy bill -- and let it be seen as the President getting his way? Dems had to pass this bill because the Commander in Chief wouldn't let the Dem Congress do what the American people wanted it to do.

"Never mind declaring victory," this staffer says. Indeed. This policy belongs to the people who "won" -- the President and the GOP.

[Johonny]

1. Well

The Dems floated out several different bills. I think they have a much better read on where representatives in both parties now stand. I think that's progress if not very exciting progress to the average voter. I think it's certainly progress that Congress is at least talking about and voting on these type of measures, even if nothing this round passed. For me the longer Bush has to talk about the war in Iraq, the more unpopular he gets. Anything that keeps the war in the news and in the minds of Americans is good for those that want this occupation to be over.

[Greeby]

2. Sending mexed missages again?

:crazy: