You're right on NOT passing additional war bills as the way to go.  

Strategy is actually putting out a set of parameters that actually map to reality, and the reality is that there is not the discipline in the party to do what you suggest . . .

Had the netroots gone along with a set of parameters that actually map to reality, we would still be the minority party. The C/W of reality early in the 04 election season was by DC standards that we could compete in a few selected places and if we were really lucky we might win a slim majority in the House and forget a majority in the Senate. The netroots refused to accept the so called REALITY and pushed the boundaries to help achieve a majority.

If Dem leadership is going to take the easy way out by not even attempting to bring some discipline into the party, then the Blue Dog position on every issue will be the Democratic position. Not something I'm willing to quietly accept and not a winning strategy for 08 IMO. The Blue Dogs are not the only Representatives that have constituents. Ignoring the wishes of a majority of the country to satisfy a few can have an adverse effect on the party.

Matt using this phony, elite, expert language ("Strategy is actually putting out a set of parameters that actually map to reality")inexplicably buys into Bushco's reality--which is to say, unreality itself.

The reality is on the ground and no one can really dispute what's been going on for all these years now and that there is no good answer than getting out. Besides that, we, in the majority,should be making the strategy/reality.

"When members of Congress pursue an anti-war strategy that's been called 'slow bleeding,' they are not supporting the troops, they are undermining them," he said. "Anyone can say they support the troops and we should take them at their word, but the proof will come when it's time to provide the money....

...."Either we are serious in fighting the war on terror or not.""

link

I even wrote a diary about it!

I didn't think the role of the netroots and the Democrats was throwing your hands in the air and saying "we don't have the votes!"

I thought it was about finding solutions to difficult problems, not just giving up.

Assess the powers we actually possess and figure out how to use those powers. Using those powers changes the landscape, changing the landscape and aggressive 'lobbing' will CHANGE the votes.

Do we REALLY want to have our new democratic president in 08 have two more years of the bush debacle dumped in their lap and have the responsibility of solving it then?

[The Dem leadership] point to polls that show the public opposes cutting off funding or revoking President Bush's authority for the war but backs bringing home troops by next year.

What they're leaving out of their plans is that the new majority has a responsibility to provide leadership, to cut through the confused and propagandized thinking of the public. They should be offering constructive ideas around which new conventional wisdom can coalesce, not chasing old CW. Alternatives to more-of-the-same have to be presented and fought for with vision and moral authority. Dems can use their majority to lead and educate a public that hasn't been getting the full picture of disaster that is the Iraq adventure, and the netroots should be encouraging and supporting them to do that, not acquiesing when they fall back into old habits of weak, lazy, and timid thinking.

it's a matter of scale - time scale.

at any point in politics, you are working in the moment - like a diver  working in the swift currents of a muddy river.

what's coming up?

you never know; but it could be very dangerous.

but, over time.

you get a picture in your head of what's going on down there

and confidence in that picture allows you to take action.

that the "netroots" or the "dems" are moving slowly and cautiously does not prove or disprove "courage", "resolve", "caring" or any other fine adjective.

it's simply common, political, good sense.

in the emotional cauldron that is a nation at war, especially a frustrated nation, anything but caution is folly.

politics is all about timing -

when to talk and when to shut up, when you have the votes and when you don't, when you have public support and when you don't.

pull the trigger too soon and the quarry escapes.

right now the dems are building a case for deeply distrusting the bush admin on more fronts than the war -- vet care, u.s, attorney firings, medicare restrictions, expulsion of families from katrina trailer camps.

next up? maybe  a view of the corporate copper pit that is haliburton.

when's the time to pop the big questions to the american people on trust and confidence in the president viz his judgment of future american actions in iraq?

i don't know.

but i personally feel that a little more widely known and widely held info on the misconduct of ALL aspects of american government by the bush admin is a very good thing.

a little more time.

as i said in an earlier post, patience, lad, patience.

this is not a legal case.

this is a "case" of gross misconduct of a sort none of us, old or young, have ever seen in an american presidency,

a public office most of us hold in highest esteem.

but when the dam breaks against bush,

and it will,