Democrats Play It Safe

The democrats caved in. The war spending supplemental will reach Bush's desk with little more than progress reports in the way of added accountability. Democrats, facing a Memorial Day weekend with unfunded troops, made the necessary political calculation.

Apparently we will now be looking forward to September when the good general, Petraeus, reports progress and advises us on the best course going forward. Then we'll go from there. "The Skeptic" has a problem with this. First, generals don't set policy. Civilian officials set policy and generals execute. We should not be waiting around for some general to tell us what to do. Second, what do we think the general is going to say? "We can dig in and prevail victorious." No general is going to say that "we've lost." Generals get paid to fight. War is good for business.

Dubya seems determined to drop this war in the next president's lap. That could be a liability for republican presidential candidates since they are so hawkish. How do you remain a war-mongering hawk while distancing yourself from Iraq? It might be to the advantage of democratic candidates, ex. Hillary who is herself a hawk. The longer the war goes on the bigger an issue it becomes.

Sure, Hillary pays lip service to the anti-war voters but she is a hawk through and through. She only came around to her current position of opposition to the war when it became decidedly fashionable to do so. Furthermore, she wants to sustain military bases in Iraq indefinitely. So if she becomes the nominee anti-war voters could be unrepresented in the upcoming election.