I've got to say, of all the things that get me down about this job, there's nothing worse than the people who want to quit the game and take their ball home every time we face a setback. It's as if every word I've ever written about this being a long-term battle means zero. As if it's instant gratification or nothing.
[...]
The conservative movement spent three decades building up their machine and completing the takeover of their party. And some of you want to quit after one setback?
That's embarrassing.
Buck up. We still haven't completely lost this Iraq supplemental battle. And if we do, instead of crying and taking your ball home, resolve to fight even harder. We owe it to our troops in Iraq, to our families, to our neighbors, to ourselves.
Shorter kos: My party, right or wrong.
Shaming is such a handy tool. Who cares about the Dems caving, backing down, capitulating, surrendering, abandoning what they were elected to do? How dare anyone stand on principle and refuse to support them. "Buck up." kos has feelings and you're embarassing him.
Thursday: After realizing that his party really is full of a bunch of sellouts and spineless Bush appeasers - many of which his glorified ATM machine helped elect.
So who's fault is it we have this turkey on our hands?
The most obvious culprit are the Republicans, who'd rather keep seeing our troops die in the Iraqi desert than admit their Dear Leader has made a blunder of epic proportion. But that's too easy. We won control of Congress last year. Congressional Republicans should be irrelevant.
So it's on to the Democrats, who appear to have learned nothing from the last few elections, and continue to cling to outdated CW like, "Voters think Democrats are weak because we don't want to bomb the shit out of other countries."
Voters think Democrats are weak -- and I'm in this camp -- because if Democrats don't fight for what they believe in, then what will they fight for? How can we trust them to do what's right when they'll jump at shadows?
I guess that's what happens when you get out of that pity party you were having in your head the day before when you decided to take it out on everybody else except the elected Democrats and finally smell the fucking coffee.
Oh, but wait...
So yeah, it's the Democrats fault. But do we blame the whole caucus, or do we blame the Blue Dog/DLC/Third Way Dems who held this supplemental hostage? From simple deduction (looking at the votes on the Warner and Feingold-Red [sic] amendments), the culprits are:
Pryor
Lincoln
Landrieu
Nelson
Nelson
Salazar
Conspicuously absent: Webb, Tester, Sherrod Brown... kos-approved (tm) Blue Dogs.
There are many individual Democrats who are heroically fighting against this war, and will vote against this blank check Capitulation Bill. But they've been let down by their leadership. I don't pretend to understand the legislative process, but last time I checked, the leadership has broad powers to control what legislation reaches the floor for a vote.
Gee. You'd think that after having a political blog for a few years, he'd actually take some time to learn about the legislative process? And those heroic Dems are those you continue to marginalize, kos. Does the name Kucinich ring a bell? The most you could bring yourself to say about him was "ugh".
kos: finally jumping on the obvious bandwagon, a day late and a dollar short after realizing that people aren't buying his "it's just about winning" game anymore.
