WILLARD: "They told me that you had gone totally insane and that your methods were unsound."
KURTZ: "Are my methods unsound?"
WILLARD: "I don't see any method at all, sir."
Please tell me that as a matter of strategy our leaders didn't capitulate to avoid being bitch slapped...
Please tell me that as a matter of strategy our leaders our leaders don't believe this capitulation is victory...
Look, setting aside for the moment whether confrontation, supported by the majority of the American people, would be the better tactic at the moment, it appears our leaders have no effective rhetorical or political strategy whatsoever. If you're going to capitulate, if that is your short term strategy, at least embrace it and frame to your advantage.
Atrios, as usual, sums it up succinctly:
I understand the leadership doesn't have the votes. So say that, and blame those responsible.
If capitulation is their affirmative strategy, then, you know, they should actually use it as a strategy. They should get mad. They should be assigning blame. They should be seething that the GOP is playing a game of chicken with the troops. They should be hanging this no accountability bill around the GOP's necks.
Instead, there appears to be no strategy, no method at all. No short term strategy on the supplemental. No long term strategy to use the FY2008 Iraq authorization process, where we're quietly on track toward authorizing another $140 billion without any real guidelines or benchmarks to determine whether and when the appropriations should be for redeployment out of Iraq, as another tool to effect policy. Our leaders need to give us more than symbolic votes and incoherent strategy.
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
There are no "elaborate plans." Just madness without method...
(Crossposted at Crystal Gazing)