Drawing a Lion in the Sand

I don't know if the Dems did the right thing tactically when they caved to Bush and sent him a war-funding bill that does not set a withdrawal timeline. Big Mike Koppy (not a friend of the blog; too busy for such nonsense) says the polls that show a strong majority of Americans want out of Iraq actually mean something and that the Democrats made a mistake and that a majority of Americans would "get it" no matter how Bush and the Republicans spin "defeat" in Iraq, asserting that the Democrats made us lose.

I'm not so sure. I'm not saying that the American people are dim and confused with a brainload of Mutual Exclusive ideas, which state of mindless might mean they are capable of hating the war and hating those who end the hateful war all at the same time.

I'm just saying that some Americans are just such noodles. I'm saying that such a "mad middle" exists between those who would thank the Dems for ending the war and those who followed God into Baghdad and don't think He wants us to leave. I'm saying there's five or ten percent of the American voting public who are confused enough to scamper back to the Republicans when Iraq implodes -- as I assume it must -- when we finally get out, if the Republicans tell them it was all the Democrats' fault.

That five to 10 percent could sway the next election. Meantime, of course, at some point X percent of those against the war will become fed up with what may be vacillation -- but what may be shrewd calculation -- on the part of the the Congressional Dems and dig up Nader's twitching corpse and take us down that road again, at the end of which is another Republican war maker.

Which would mean it certainly wasn't shrewd calculation on the part of the Democrats at all.

There are probably many like me, eager for the Dems to drag the President into the cage for a fight to the finish but afraid the time isn't right. We are trying to be so damn smart, to thread the bouncing needle at just the right split second.

And in the background whisper the words of Akira Kurasawa, the great Japanese film director:

If I wait till I am ready, I will never be ready.