Iraq supplemental and pragmatism

Matt says pretty much everything relevant.

The Democratic base is sorely disappointed with what they see as the Congress' cowardice...or at least what they feel is Democrats' lack of unity or competence to end the war.

But that's not really fair. It needs to be pointed out that if the House was led by somebody more ideological than Pelosi--say, Kucinich--or if the whole progressive caucus shaped Democratic policy, then we'd probably be in the same position we're in now. Sure, there might, in that parallel universe, be articles of impeachment and more subpoenas, etc. But for Congress to end the war, legislation has to be passed. Veto proof. And an ideological band of Democrats wouldn't do any better at convincing Republicans to switch their Iraq votes than pragmatists like Pelosi have been. (Remember, Pelosi and Kucinich have both made clear what they would do if they had all the power in the world to end the war, and they're on the exact same page.)

The Reid-Pelosi strategy--of pecking and pecking and pecking away at the obstacles with votes and public hearings, etc.--at first seemed pretty impotent to me. But I can't imagine what else they'd do. And to recommend instead that Democrats do nothing, or stage symbloic votes on Kucinich's (or, say, Feingold's) legislation makes the anti-war cause look dead. And it doesn't have any of the benefits of the pragmatist strategy, including the possibility that the pragmatist strategy might, very slowly, be working.