The Chicken Doves (pelosi and reid slaughtered by rolling stone lefty)

[Wretched Excess]

this guy is pissed.  it's written from a massive moonbat lefty perspective, but anyone that calls
harry reid "one of the biggest pussies in U.S. political history" is worth reading.

The Chicken Doves
Elected to end the war, Democrats have surrendered to Bush on Iraq and betrayed the peace movement for their own political ends

Quietly, while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been inspiring Democrats everywhere with their rolling bitchfest, congressional superduo Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have completed one of the most awesome political collapses since Neville Chamberlain. At long last, the Democratic leaders of Congress have publicly surrendered on the Iraq War, just one year after being swept into power with a firm mandate to end it.

Solidifying his reputation as one of the biggest pussies in U.S. political history, Reid explained his decision to refocus his party's energies on topics other than ending the war by saying he just couldn't fit Iraq into his busy schedule. "We have the presidential election," Reid said recently. "Our time is really squeezed."

There was much public shedding of tears among the Democratic leadership, as Reid, Pelosi and other congressional heavyweights expressed deep sadness that their valiant charge up the hill of change had been thwarted by circumstances beyond their control — that, as much as they would love to continue trying to end the catastrophic Iraq deal, they would now have to wait until, oh, 2009 to try again. "We'll have a new president," said Pelosi. "And I do think at that time we'll take a fresh look at it."

Pelosi seemed especially broken up about having to surrender on Iraq, sounding like an NFL coach in a postgame presser, trying with a straight face to explain why he punted on first-and-goal. "We just didn't have any plays we liked down there," said the coach of the 0-15 Dems. "Sometimes you just have to play the field-position game...."

In reality, though, Pelosi and the Democrats were actually engaged in some serious point-shaving. Working behind the scenes, the Democrats have systematically taken over the anti-war movement, packing the nation's leading group with party consultants more interested in attacking the GOP than ending the war. "Our focus is on the Republicans," one Democratic apparatchik in charge of the anti-war coalition declared. "How can we juice up attacks on them?"

The story of how the Democrats finally betrayed the voters who handed them both houses of Congress a year ago is a depressing preview of what's to come if they win the White House. And if we don't pay attention to this sorry tale now, while there's still time to change our minds about whom to nominate, we might be stuck with this same bunch of spineless creeps for four more years. With no one but ourselves to blame.

The controversy over the Democratic "strategy" to end the war basically comes down to whom you believe. According to the Reid-Pelosi version of history, the Democrats tried hard to force President Bush's hand by repeatedly attempting to tie funding for the war to a scheduled withdrawal. Last spring they tried to get him to eat a timeline and failed to get the votes to override a presidential veto. Then they retreated and gave Bush his money, with the aim of trying again after the summer to convince a sufficient number of Republicans to cross the aisle in support of a timeline.

But in September, Gen. David Petraeus reported that Bush's "surge" in Iraq was working, giving Republicans who might otherwise have flipped sufficient cover to continue supporting the war. The Democrats had no choice, the legend goes, but to wait until 2009, in the hopes that things would be different under a Democratic president.

Democrats insist that the reason they can't cut off the money for the war, despite their majority in both houses, is purely political. "George Bush would be on TV every five minutes saying that the Democrats betrayed the troops," says Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an Independent who voted against the war but caucuses with the Democrats. Then he glumly adds another reason. "Also, it just wasn't going to happen."

Why it "just wasn't going to happen" is the controversy. In and around the halls of Congress, the notion that the Democrats made a sincere effort to end the war meets with, at best, derisive laughter. Though few congressional aides would think of saying so on the record, in private many dismiss their party's lame anti-war effort as an absurd dog-and-pony show, a calculated attempt to score political points without ever being serious about bringing the troops home.

"Yeah, the amount of expletives that flew in our office alone was unbelievable," says an aide to one staunchly anti-war House member. "It was all about the public show. Reid and Pelosi would say they were taking this tough stand against Bush, but if you actually looked at what they were sending to a vote, it was like Swiss cheese. Full of holes."

In the House, some seventy Democrats joined the Out of Iraq caucus and repeatedly butted heads with Reid and Pelosi, arguing passionately for tougher measures to end the war. The fight left some caucus members bitter about the party's failure. Rep. Barbara Lee of California was one of the first to submit an amendment to cut off funding unless it was tied to an immediate withdrawal. "I couldn't even get it through the Rules Committee in the spring," Lee says.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a fellow caucus member, says Democrats should have refused from the beginning to approve any funding that wasn't tied to a withdrawal. "If we'd been bold the minute we got control of the House — and that's why we got the majority, because the people of this country wanted us out of Iraq — if we'd been bold, even if we lost the votes, we would have gained our voice."

An honest attempt to end the war, say Democrats like Woolsey and Lee, would have involved forcing Bush to execute his veto and allowing the Republicans to filibuster all they wanted. Force a showdown, in other words, and use any means necessary to get the bloodshed ended.

"Can you imagine Tom DeLay and Denny Hastert taking no for an answer the way Reid and Pelosi did on Iraq?" asks the House aide in the expletive-filled office. "They'd find a way to get the votes. They'd get it done somehow."

But any suggestion that the Democrats had an obligation to fight this good fight infuriates the bund of hedging careerists in charge of the party. In fact, nothing sums up the current Democratic leadership better than its vitriolic criticisms of those recalcitrant party members who insist on interpreting their 2006 mandate as a command to actually end the war. Rep. David Obey, chair of the House Appropriations Committee and a key Pelosi-Reid ally, lambasted anti-war Democrats who "didn't want to get specks on those white robes of theirs." Obey even berated a soldier's mother who begged him to cut off funds for the war, accusing her and her friends of "smoking something illegal."

Much More

[Wretched Excess]

Even beyond the war, the Democrats have repeatedly gone limp-dick every time the Bush administration so much as raises its voice.

I told you he was pissed.

[DixieBelle]

The 110th Congress is a failure. None of the objectives have been met. Suck on that, Stretch.

[Lord Undies]

What a dishonest article!  I'm not surprised, though.  It is Rolling Stone after all.

One would get the impression the democrats had a huge sweep into congress in 2006.  That is a misleading lie.  They hold the senate by the grace of Lieberman and the house by the grace of a few numbers.  Most of the new democrats had to run as Reagan's ghost to get elected.  Mandate?  It's to laugh!

BTW, the "war" isn't nearly as unpopular as the left wants the world to believe.  They carry on, like in this article, like the masses are antiwar and it's common knowledge, so there is no need to back up any statements with facts. 

Dishonesty thy name is liberalism.

[Wretched Excess]

What a dishonest article!  I'm not surprised, though.  It is Rolling Stone after all.

One would get the impression the democrats had a huge sweep into congress in 2006.  That is a misleading lie.  They hold the senate by the grace of Lieberman and the house by the grace of a few numbers.  Most of the new democrats had to run as Reagan's ghost to get elected.  Mandate?  It's to laugh!

BTW, the "war" isn't nearly as unpopular as the left wants the world to believe.  They carry on, like in this article, like the masses are antiwar and it's common knowledge, so there is no need to back up any statements with facts. 

Dishonesty thy name is liberalism.

I buy rolling stone at the news stand sometimes, and generally make it a point to read this guy in particular.   yeah, I know it's premise is crap, but I enjoyed watching pelosi and reid taking on water from the left.

[DixieBelle]

Undies is right. The so-called "mandate" was technically called a "new direction". See, they didn't specify which direction.

[Wretched Excess]

Undies is right. The so-called "mandate" was technically called a "new direction". See, they didn't specify which direction.

the size of the loss in terms of votes in the house races was extremely small.  and it was positively microscopic in the senate. 

am I the only one around here that reads the opposition with any regularity?  

[Lord Undies]

Undies is right. The so-called "mandate" was technically called a "new direction". See, they didn't specify which direction.

the size of the loss in terms of votes in the house races was extremely small.  and it was positively microscopic in the senate. 

am I the only one around here that reads the opposition with any regularity?  

I have a copy of Rolling Stone.  It's newsprint and the cover headline reads "Jimi Hendrix 1943-1970". 

[Chris_]

Gridlock is good.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Undies is right. The so-called "mandate" was technically called a "new direction". See, they didn't specify which direction.

That's actually the essence of their problem.  A majority didn't like the way things were going, but that is a million miles from a majority wanting to say "Screw it" and load all the troops on the first ship home.

[ReardenSteel]

Undies is right. The so-called "mandate" was technically called a "new direction". See, they didn't specify which direction.

the size of the loss in terms of votes in the house races was extremely small.  and it was positively microscopic in the senate. 

am I the only one around here that reads the opposition with any regularity?  

I have not read Rolling Stone since P. J. O'Rourke left it. 

I don't really read many magazines at all anymore but the OP was a fine article and I do read some lefty book authors.