Democrats don’t like it, but say they can’t do anything but criticize it. This is a politically easy position for them to take, and ultimately only sends a message of weakness to those against whom the surge is directed.
Of course, there’s always Joe Lieberman, now emphasizing the adjective, rather than the proper noun it modifies. His victory in blue state Connecticut gives the lie, I think, to those who claim that there’s little support for doing what it takes to win the war. Consider, for example, this polling data.
Lieberman was an incumbent running for a fourth term, and likeable. It’s easy to become personally known in a small state -- and hard to defeat a politically competent incumbent in a small state, partially for that reason.
Also, Lamont was essentially a political neophyte, and probably vulnerable to the charge that he was one of those silver-spoon leftists. As much as anything, working-class voters probably found him a bad personal fit. Lieberman’s victory, although consistent with a residual preference among voters for a victory rather than a defeat in Iraq, hardly proves that Americans are really determined to win.
Fair enough. But Lieberman was (and continues to be) clearly identified with the single issue that led to his defeat in the Democratic primary. His numbers are down, of course, but still over 50%.
Reid: "We’ll give the military anything they want. We’re going to make sure that they get every dollar they need. But, what we’re not going to go along with, and we’ll take a close look at this huge supplemental we’re going to get. We’re going to take a close look at all these corporations that are over there. All these contractors. It’s estimated that there’s 100,000 of them now. 100,000 of them. And we’re going to take a close look at that. I think Halliburton’s made enough money in Iraq."
What if Reid tries to blunt the surge by making the military take over the contractors’ duties?
But really, the Dem Congress can de-fund the war, or use the purse to indeed micromanage the beast, riding the Article 1, Section 8 "make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces" as well as leveraging their inherent spending powers.
Appropriations contigent upon volumes of supporting testimony pitched to suspicious House committees...the Surge could be delayed forever...
We’ll have to see what momentum remains from of the dissaffection that drove this this last electoral blowout.