Democratic weakness

I'm as disappointed as anybody else in liberal blogistan about the fact that the Democrats didn't push a little harder during this round of the fight to end the war. But I haven't heard anybody argue convincingly that they've taken the wrong step. The wrong step, of course, would be any step that sets back the earliest possible day that Democrats can force the war to end.

My own thoughts are this: Everybody is basically pissed that the Democratic leadership wouldn't have a more protracted argument with the president about this supplemental. Well, maybe that could've gone on a little longer. Reid could've sent the bill back to the president over and over again, and won some small rhetorical points against the president. The president would've said that Democrats want to strand the troops. Democrats would've said the president won't listen to the whole wide world about the need to end the war. These two things happen to be identical but the Democrats do have the better argument, so the spin works in their favor. But what leadership needs is a veto proof majority. I have extraordinary doubts that they'll get anything close to that before 2009, but if they want it, they need to bring senators and congressmen to their side. Not the president. And convincing congressmen and senators to work against the war requires shaming them over and over again--making them vote openly four, five, six times a year in favor of continuing to fund the war.

My own suspicion is that if any Democratic strategy to end the war will ever work, it'll be because of steps taken within the Capitol. But I want to hear first any arguments that my idea will work more slowly than forcing bills like the supplemental into the president's face for him to repeatedly veto.