A wreck

So the vote has come, the "deal" has been made. Others have expressed their outrage, their frustration, their fury; some crudely, some eloquently, all passionately.

But I can't join them. I do feel some anger, yes, but not outrage. What I feel, rather, is disgust. Disgust and bitterness, the bitter weariness of the repeatedly jilted lover who responds to the latest plea of "I promise, honey, next time it really will be different!" by shaking their head and closing the door.

This is not to say that I didn't see this coming more than six weeks ago. (And of course I was hardly alone in that.) The hints of a "deal," laughably labeled a "compromise," involving no timetables, no commitments, no requirements, just vague "benchmarks" and "goals" that could be waived at the whim of Bush's bloodlust, had been there for some time, right there alongside the evidence that for Bush it was as much a matter of ego and "manhood" as policy.

Still, I kept some faith, kept up some hope, took some comfort in some of the moves and events, such as Rahm Emanuel's memo urging colleagues to not back down, Harry Reid's reference to the war as "lost," and the House's response to Bush's initial veto of passing a supplemental that only covered two months. But now that it's finally happened, now that the betrayal, the collapse, the craven captulation, is finally here, I just don't have the energy - I just don't feel the surprise - that generates outrage.

But disgust - of that feeling I have more than an ample supply. Disgust driven not only by the facts that both Rahm "Don't Back Down" Emanuel and Harry "The War is Lost" Reid backed down and supported spending another $100 billion and an unknown number of lives in pursuit of more loss, not only by the unconditional surrender of principle, but by the stomach-turning whining of the Dummycrat leadership that they had "no alternative" but to bow down and kiss the boot. For example, on May 24, the New York Times said that

Democrats said they did not relish the prospect of leaving Washington for a Memorial Day break - the second recess since the financing fight began - and leaving themselves vulnerable to White House attacks that they were again on vacation while the troops were wanting. That criticism seemed more politically threatening to them than the anger Democrats knew they would draw from the left by bowing to Mr. Bush.

Well, Dums, since you're shaking in your boots at the idea of being called nasty names by people to who the public is no longer listening while figuring you can ignore not only that antiwar majority but the people who goddam elected you toad-faced buffoons, here's an idea: Don't take the flipping recess! Say "We are not going to bullied into surrendering the desires and interests of the people to who we are responsible and we are especially not going to be lectured on 'responsibility' by a president who ignored warnings of 9/11, mislead the public about intelligence in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, declared "mission accomplished," and has taken more vacation time than any other president in our history. We are going to stay here and we are going to support the call of the people of the United States to get us out of Iraq." And have some leading Democrat with something to say along those lines out there every single damned day.

But no, you couldn't do that. I wonder if you even thought of it.

Meanwhile, the Boston Globe was quoting Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean as telling a fundraiser that the bill was actually a great achievement, even an outright win!

"We accomplished in five months what the Republicans refused to do or even try. We are holding President Bush and the Iraqi government accountable," said Dean. "He said he would never sign a bill with any accountability, and he will now have to do that."

Oh, it gets even better. Molly Ivins would have had a ball with this kind of material. Democrats were actually claiming that the bill really involves a timetable! Really! We swear! Harry Reid told MSNBC that

[w]e now have the timeline that the Republicans have set, and that’s this September. And that’s the very least, and then as I’ve indicated – the Defense authorization – we’re going to start right where we’ve left off with this bill, continuing our push to change direction in the War on Iraq.

So even though the bill calls only for pro forma reports on "requirements" that Bush can waive at will and the timetable was stripped out completely, still this is a clear case of both accountability and timetables!

And what's more, we're going to "continue our push!" The phrase "ratchet up the pressure" has probably seen more use in the last few weeks than in the previous 10 years. Because this is only the beginning! Or, in other words, "I promise, honey, next time it really will be different!"

But that brings us right back to the whining about not having any choice, a mewling whimpering whose self-pitying tears were based on the pout "we couldn't override a veto." Or, as the pundits like to put it, "they didn't have the votes." That is, the lack of a historically-rare veto-proof majority in both houses of Congress leaves the Dummycrat leadership impotent and helpless in the face of the childish petulance of an emotionally stunted president. "We had no alternative," they sob.

But of course there were alternatives. An alternative, for one, of not passing a bill. Of saying "That's is, no more, the end, finis. Use what's left from what's already been appropriated, use the contingency funds the Pentagon has, use them to withdraw the troops safely. There's more than enough available for that and you know it." Or an alternative of passing the same (or a similar) bill as before, complete with definitive timetables and benchmarks with actual teeth and telling the White House "We are not your piggy bank to be drawn on whenever you feel like it and we are under no damn obligation to do whatever you want. Here's your money. If you want it, you take it with the conditions. Or you leave it. That's the deal."

But no, that was apparently impossible because that would require, well, something vaguely akin to a backbone and those are rare in the hallowed halls of Congress. Instead, we got another chorus of "just wait until next time!"

"Next time," in this case and according to Reid, being the Defense Authorization Bill. Well, uh, excuse me, but this "don't have the votes" business is going to change exactly how between now and then? Assuming Congress does pass that bill with some provision that leads Shrub to pitch a hissy fit and veto it, are you telling us, Mr. Reid, that the unable-to-override-a-veto Congress will shrug and say "in that case, no bill?" Or will we instead get another tale of how gee whiz helpless you are and how your duty is not to the American people but to "pass[ing] something the president will sign," that is, to following not the will of the public but the whims of the president and so the provision gets dumped? Why should we believe it will be any different then than it was now?

Indeed, why should we believe it will be any different in September? In his prepared remarks before the vote, John Kerry said it well:

So the bottom line is that come September, we are probably going to be in the same position we are now, watching our kids get killed for a strategy that isn't producing real results in the only category that really matters: political progress. And what are we going to hear from this Administration? More of the same backward logic: the price of failure is so high that we must continue to pursue a strategy that is failing.

Glenn Greenwald puts it more sharply and in the wider context of the political non-debate among the self-proclaimed "serious" pundits:

[A]ll that is going to happen In September is that we are going to await with bated breath for General David Petraeus - he of infallible wisdom, judgment and honesty, and unquestionable objectivity - to descend upon Washington and reveal whether there is Real Progress being made (by him) in Iraq. ...

And, needless to say, General Petraeus will, cautiously though emphatically, declare that progress is being made, though there is much work that remains to be done. And therefore we must redouble our resolve and stay until The Job is Done. ...

[And so] it would be irresponsible and reckless (and terribly unserious) not to continue with our Great Progress, that we should leave such judgments to the Generals on the Ground, not Politicians in Washington. ...

And in September, when the great (though incomplete) progress is unveiled by General Petraeus, our pundit class will continue their canonization of The General, and thus, that there is Progress in Iraq will be the conventional wisdom which all serious and responsible people recognize....

Why are we supposed to think that argument, that received wisdom, that self-satisfied pomposity, combined with renewed cries of anyone daring to suggest otherwise is "anti-troop," will have any less sway in September than it had this time?

In fact, we shouldn't. We should rather assume that on its own Congress will take no steps to enforce a withdrawal, no steps for "benchmarks" with actual penalties attached, no steps for "goals" that can't be ignored or dismissed or simply, if that proves more convenient, lied about.

In sum, we are where we have been all along. I have said it and I say it again: What will stop this war is

tens of thousands of pissed-off Americans in the streets, over and over again, in the streets of DC, of New York, of Indianapolis, of Albuquerque, of Minot and Montpelier, Walla Walla and Wheeling, screaming "Out NOW!" Screaming it until the walls of Congress rock. Screaming it until Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have headaches. Screaming it until a withdrawal in 90 days or 120 days is the safe, "compromise" position.

Short of that, the best we can hope for - the best we can hope for - is a war like Afghanistan has become: one that grinds slowly on, month after month, year after year, and death after death. Until, finally, it can said of us, if it cannot already, that "they have made a wasteland and call it peace."

This does not mean abandoning legislative efforts. It does not mean abandoning lobbying. It does not mean you shouldn't "call your representative." It does mean we can't count on Congress to do anything that we don't force it to do, that nothing will truly change until the price of ignoring us - and in this case I mean that majority us, the "get us the hell out" majority us - is greater than the irrational, trembling fear of what omigod some White House aide might mutter to Matt Drudge. That is, Congress will act and act firmly only when it becomes clear that there is a genuine price to pay for doing otherwise, whether that price is a direct threat to their comfy positions or serious social disruption à la the notorious, demonized, but actually quite admirable '60s.

In short, do something! Then, and only then, Congress will follow along.