After a day filled with hot air, with Democrats vehemently crying for up and down votes on nonbinding resolutions to oppose the Bush Iraq Surge, and the GOP desperately trying to avoid going on the record in support of the Bush surge, the very smart columnist E J Dionne learns some correct lessons and some incorrect ones. The correct ones:

In other words: Even if a substantial majority of Congress that includes many Republicans demonstrates a lack of confidence in the Bush-Cheney surge, the administration will feel free to ignore the other elected branch of our government -- and the more recently elected branch (remember November, anyone?) at that.

And the GOP wants avoid getting shackled with Iraq in 2008. This is clear and that seems obvious to me. But what EJ is missing is that this Kabuki will mean nothing in November 2008. But, to be fair, EJ sees this as building up for a reversal of Iraq policy:

The impatience of the administration's critics is entirely understandable. But it would be a shame if impatience got in the way of a sensible long-term strategy to bring America's engagement in this war to as decent an end as possible as quickly as possible -- even if not as quickly as they'd like. The anti-surge resolution is a necessary first step, which is why those who are against a genuine change in our Iraq policy are fighting so hard to stop it.

Dionne is incorrect here. This does NOT lead to a sensible long term strategy to end the war. It is NOT a first step towards that. Russ Feingold is right:

This is not a time to finesse the situation. This is not a time for a slow walk. This almost reminds me a little bit of the way Democrats behaved in October 2002, which was trying to play it safe, trying to use words such as 'well, we're going to vote for this resolution, but what it really means is that the president should go to the UN. That stuff doesn’t fly. And this kind of attempt to go a little bit of the way just to show you're on the other side of the president doesn’t fly either.

Glenn Greenwald links to a remarkable piece by Jeff Goldberg in the New Yorker on the lyingest liar in Washington, DC, Joe Lieberman. While Glenn basically exposes that Joe Lieberman is Marty Peretz's bigot twin:

Joe Lieberman believes, accurately, that he can openly praise Mark Steyn's foreign policy "theories" (embraced just as enthusiastically by the right-wing blogosphere and Marty Peretz) because -- while everyone to the left of The New Republic is deemed to be a fringe, untouchable radical -- there is no such thing as a right-wing pundit too extreme or pernicious to be declared out of the mainstream.

Jeff Goldberg demonstrates, again, what a liar Lieberman is:

Ed Kilgore responds to my take on Iraq/Iran priorities:

I see no particular evidence that congressional Dems are folding their tents on Iraq. . . . As for the initial question of how progressive bloggers should think about these tangled questions, I don't quite see how worrying about a new war keeps anyone from stopping the old one . . . So let a few bloggers try to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Today, the level headed blogger at TPM says:

The 'surge' and the accompanying political jousting surrounding it is important. But it pales in importance compared to the possibility of drifting or getting gamed into a shooting war with Iran. This is what Congress really needs to get on top of right now.

You were saying Ed? Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi said:

And [Pelosi] told lawmakers that "if it appears likely that Bush wants to take the country to war against Iran, the House would take up a bill to deny him the authority to do so," the Post quoted Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly as saying.

At least Tom Vilsack has his priorities straight. Because our level headed bloggers have taken the bait.

Tom Vilsack, current Presidential candidate and former Iowa Governor AND DLC Chairman has called for an immediate cutoff of Iraq war funding:

Congress has the constitutional responsibility and a moral duty to cut off funding for the status quo," said Vilsack. "Not a cap — an end. Not eventually — immediately."

Kudos to Tom Vilsack. He has earned my respect and my attention.

The deadliest suicide bombing to date occurred in Iraq today. More than 100 were killed and 300 were injured, many of whom are expected to die.

The pick-up truck that exploded was left at the entrance of a market in Sadriya, a low-income, predominantly Shiite area, police said. The truck was driven by a suicide bomber and packed with at least a ton of explosives, Major General Jihad al-Jabiri, director of the Interior Ministry's explosives division, told Iraqi TV.

The blast destroyed at least 10 buildings, Jabiri said, including two that were completely leveled.

Meanwhile, a new U.S. Intelligence report predicts a bleak future for Iraq:

In my continuing campaign of disagreeing with Left bloggers and writers, I now turn to everybody's favorite (but my favorite first) blogger, Digby, who appears to endorse the very line of argument I find infuriating:

Deciding what to do next about Iraq is hard — on the merits, and in the politics. . . . By comparison, Iran is easy: on the merits, in the politics. . . . While the Congress flounders about what, exactly, it can do about Iraq, it can do something useful, while it still matters, in making clear that it will authorize no money and provide no endorsement for military action against Iran.

. . . It may be just this possibility that has the administration carrying on so about how Iranians are behind the killing of Americans even though it is an absurdity. They would like to create the conditions where they can say that anyone failing to back action in Iran is failing to protect the troops.

In a sane world, the congress would move very quickly on this before that notion jells. But it won't, because they believe they must allow the president to have all "options on the table," --- . . . Still, that seems to be where they are, at least with respect to Iran. Not only are they not prepared to stop it, they are either silent on the issue or actively supporting the premise upon which the president's argument is built.

First, Digby appears to implicitly endorse the Fallows "put Iraq on the back burner" proposal which is simply unacceptable. Second, Digby simply ignores the very strong statements Democrats have made against attacking Iran, including the most crucial argument - Bush has no authority to attack Iran:

Here is a new line of thinking I find extremely infuriating, via TPM:

Deciding what to do next about Iraq is hard — on the merits, and in the politics. It’s hard on the merits because whatever comes next, from “surge” to “get out now” and everything in between, will involve suffering, misery, and dishonor. . . . By comparison, Iran is easy: on the merits, in the politics. War with Iran would be a catastrophe that would make us look back fondly on the minor inconvenience of being bogged down in Iraq. While the Congress flounders about what, exactly, it can do about Iraq, it can do something useful, while it still matters, in making clear that it will authorize no money and provide no endorsement for military action against Iran.

Matt Yglesias ran with the same nonsense the other day:

[W]hat I'd urge everyone to do is keep their eyes on the real ball in the air at the moment: Iran. If Bush really bombs Iran and spineless Democrats back him ex post facto then the whole Iraq dynamic changes dramatically, and not for the better. If you want to hassle your member of congress on behalf of some peacenik cause this month, hassle him or her about Iran.

This is so wrong, so obtuse, so plain dumb from both Fallows and Yglesias, that I simply can't understand how they came to think these things. Let's be clear -- the chance of Congress authorizing military action against Iran is zero. Zilch. None. Bush will not even consider asking for it. Everyone must know this. How could they not? The ONLY reason Bush can even contemplate action against Iran is - surprise - BECAUSE WE ARE IN IRAQ! You want to stop military action against Iran? Then work like hell to get us out of Iraq. This is too obvious. How could these smart people not see this?

Thank you Mitch McConnell:

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said Friday that his party would unite to block Senate debate next week on a bipartisan resolution opposing President Bush’s troop buildup in Iraq . . .

Some might say this gives Majority Leader Reid one last chance. I would disagree. I think the Republicans have just saved Reid from a colossal blunder. Anything Reid does now will not matter - the introduction of numerous resolutions for vote robs the exercise of any symbolic value. It is just a big nothing now.

Thank you Mitch McConnell.

It stuns me that some Dems and Dem analyzsts seem never to learn the most basic lessons of politics. Four years after proving clearly that political cravenness was the surest way to humiliating defeat, some are, incredibly, urging "caution" again on Iraq. Matt Yglesias writes:

I tend to agree with Ed Kilgore that it would be a mistake to jab the knives in the back of [the Warner] resolution. At the moment, absolutely anything that congress says or does about Iraq is pure kabuki. In kabuki terms, this resolution counts as a repudiation of Bush by Democrats and many Republicans. As policy, from what I can tell this resolution is not-so-wonderful. As kabuki, though, it's good kabuki.

No Matt, it is horrible kabuki. We do not need phony Republican repudiation of Bush, Matt. We do not need a phony nonbinding resolution that embraces the Bush narrative on the Iraq Debacle.

Senator Feingold, apparently one of the few Democrats whose brain (folks love to talk about Feingold's spine when what is most admirable in Feingold is his brain, both for policy AND politics; Feingold was on top of the Iraq issue when the celebrated Rahmbo was still cowering in the corner on the issue) seems to be functioning in Washington, explains it in a manner easy to understand:

This is why:

I know my wife hasn't seen the following headline yet, or there'd be one hell of an angry, angst-ridden email in my inbox: Oklahoma National Guard to Deploy to Iraq in 2008

It seems that my brigade has been given a warning order to prepare to deploy to Iraq in 2008, about six months after I get home. I don't know if it's the full brigade, or just the parts that haven't deployed recently, but with the new change in army policy, I could conceivably go home this summer and turn around next January and go to Iraq.

Lovely. Just f**cking lovely.

. . . And if I thought that my current deployment would make me less likely to go on this new one, boy did I have another thing coming:

About 85 percent of the soldiers in the 45th Infantry Brigade already have served combat deployments, most in Iraq or Afghanistan. Two of the brigade's units are deployed now. The 1st Battalion, 180th Infantry is in Afghanistan, and the 245th Engineer Company is in Iraq. Wyatt said these soldiers will have the experience that comes with being combat veterans, but he said it will also cause additional stress. "We understand we're asking the families and employers and soldiers to deploy again," Wyatt said.

Erm, Ya think, Sir?!?

I don't know if I'm going to have to go or not. I damn sure ain't volunteering.

Wyatt said he has pushed the Army to put the brigade on alert and issue mobilization orders as soon as possible to allow commanders access to additional equipment and other resources the troops will need. He said he hopes official orders will come in by the end of February. Body armor and some weapons are in short supply to Oklahoma Guardsmen, as National Guard units nationally have shared their resources to equip troops deploying to combat areas.

Matt Yglesias writes a post that makes no sense to me on Iraq and the Dems:

[L]iberals should "keep our powder dry" in terms of Iraq stuff until the supplemental appropriation request comes down in a couple of months. . . . I meant liberals should keep our intra-party bickering powder dry. There simply isn't an important practical difference between the different degrees of anti-warness that various politicians have staked out at this point. There will be important practical differences in terms of how people vote on proposed amendments to the supplemental request. That's the time to start really worrying about what people are up to.

Will be? No Matt, there ARE important practical differences TODAY. Some, like Russ Feingold, understand that cutting off funding is the only way to end the Iraq Debacle. And while I applauded Barack Obama's political instincts demonstrated in his Iraq proposal, I also know, as Kevin Drum rightly points out:

[E]veryone talking about this already knows the basic answer: Congress can declare war, it has certain military rulemaking powers, and it can fund and defund a war. But that's it. Like it or not, Congress simply doesn't have the power to manage specific operational aspects of a war. Big Tent Democrat made the case for this a couple of weeks ago, and I think it's pretty convincing. Now, this is not a problem. Anyone who seriously wants us to withdraw from Iraq merely needs to introduce legislation defunding the war. . . . But Obama's description of his legislation very carefully avoids any mention of funding other than to explicitly say that it "does not affect the funding for our troops in Iraq." . . . Without that, he must know that his legislation is almost certainly futile.

But Matt, who says the funding issue is what matters, says he disagrees with Drum and agrees with this:

I think Kevin Drum gets this one wrong. He says that cutting off funding is the only way for Congress to control military action, and that Obama's claim that his plan won't reduce funding for the troops in Iraq means that it won't work. But if I read Obama's statement correctly, he means that it won't reduce funding for troops currently in Iraq; it will forbid adding new ones, and it will mandate a systematic withdrawal by a date certain. Clearly the Congress has the power to limit not only funding but troop levels, and it has the power to order the Pentagon to plan and execute a withdrawal.

Matt, either funding is the critical issue or it is not. Kleiman says it is not. Kleiman is also dead wrong on the Congress' power to manage the conduct of the war.

But more importantly, if we want Democrats to vote the right way on funding the Iraq war (to me the right way is to not vote more funds without an established cutoff date, in short the Feingold Plan), we must pressure them NOW, not when the vote comes up. Matt's idea appears to be that of a disinterested commentator who will critique the actions taken and who has disdain for efforts to EFFECT that vote. This makes absolutely no sense to me. But heck, maybe I have the wrong attitude about this.

I want the Iraq Debacle to end.

An audit tells us what's been happening during the "see no evil" years of Republican congressional rule:

"Our troops are going without even as government funds go to pay for such boondoggles as an Olympic-size swimming pool in an unused training camp," said a statement issued by the Senate Democratic Communications Center directed by Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. ...

The quarterly audit released Wednesday by Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, found the $300 billion U.S. war and reconstruction effort continues to be plagued with waste, spiraling violence and corruption.

Now that Congress is in an oversight mode, it will be fun to watch as tough questions are asked and avoided.