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Democrats for War
The Imminent Compromise
by Joshua Frank The precipitous decline of antiwar sentiment within the Democratic Party has been on grand display over the past few months. The majority of leading Democrats say they oppose the war in Iraq, but still refuse to cut funding. And when Bush vetoes the pork-swollen appropriations bill, which he's promised to do, the Democrats have pledged to compromise, rewrite the bill, and grant President Bush exactly what he wants: more cash and no timetable for troop withdraw from Iraq.
"We're not going to cut off funding for the troops,'' said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin over the weekend on ABC's This Week. "But what we should do, and we're going to do, is continue to press this president to put some pressure on the Iraqi leaders to reach a political settlement.''
Levin also stated that Democrats would take out language calling
for troop withdrawal, but reiterated that they would not "vote to cut
funding, period." Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York defended Levin as well
as the Party's forthcoming concession, "We will try to come up with a
way by talking with the White House, trying to compromise with the
White House that both supports the troops and yet changes the strategy
in Iraq,'' Schumer said on the Fox News Sunday.
The Democrats
may not have enough votes to overturn a Bush veto, but they certainly
have enough to filibuster the war-funding bill, which at this point is
the only way to stop this god-awful disaster. One brave Democrat could
take a stand, filibuster, and 40 more senators could then abstain from
breaking the filibuster. That is all it would take. Bush would then
have to be the one to compromise and produce a plan that was acceptable
to the 41 Senate Democrats who want to end the war.
But, of
course, we are more likely to see Dick Cheney drinking margaritas with
Cindy Sheehan on the White House lawn before we'd witness this scenario
play out. Indeed, the Democrats have assured us that they will continue
to fund Bush's egregious war. There will be absolutely no fight in
Congress to stop it. The bloodshed will rage on. More money wasted,
more innocent Iraqis dead.
Betrayal after betrayal and we are
still told that the Democrat Party is the only vehicle for change in
this country. We are told they are the only ones who will halt the
madness of the Bush Regime. Well, we elected the Democrats to office
last November and they have done absolutely nothing to pay us back.
Sure
there may be a few true antiwar Democrats in Washington, but in the end
they are Democrats. Not antiwar activists. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who is
running another campaign for president, wants to bring the war to an
end. But as we should have learned back in 2004 when Kucinich embraced
John Kerry's pro-war campaign after running in the primaries -- we
shouldn't be trusting Kucinich's rhetoric today. Or the rhetoric any
other so-called antiwar Democrats.
When will the antiwar
movement begin to put pressure on the Democratic Party? More
importantly, when will we break with the Democrats? They have given us
more than enough reason to do so. And until we do, we will continue to
remain politically irrelevant.
Joshua Frank is Co-Editor of
Dissident Voice, and the author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped
Reelect George W. Bush. He edits BrickBurner.org, the official blog of
Dissident Voice. He can be reached at: joshua@dissidentvoice.org.
Other Recent Articles by Joshua Frank
Writings 
The precipitous decline of antiwar sentiment within the Democratic Party has been on grand display over the past few months. The majority of leading Democrats say they oppose the war in Iraq, but still refuse to cut funding. And when Bush vetoes the pork-swollen appropriations bill, which he's promised to do, the Democrats have pledged to compromise, rewrite the bill, and grant President Bush exactly what he wants: more cash and no timetable for troop withdraw from Iraq. 
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