Republicans accuse Democrats of being (gasp, choke!) "partisan"!

The Republicans are feigning outrage at the Democrats' partisanship over Congressional proposals to require withdrawal of American troops from the Iraq War. And Republican mouthpieces among the commentariat (or is that a redundant phrase?) are echoing the complaint along with lazy reporters. Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo blog has been calling particular attention to the press' seemingly studied avoidance of the word "filibuster", which has a somewhat negative implication for Big Pundit conventional wisdom, in which which Joe Lieberman/Zell Miller-style "bipartisanship" is the highest form of political virtue. Since the filibuster in the Senate is almost always used in a highly partisan manner.

Steve Benen at Talking Point Memo flags this Washington Post editorial accusing Democratic Leader Harry Reid of that greatest of sins in the catechism of High Broderism, a lack of bipartisanship, The Phony Debate 07/21/07. It reflects the obviously fake Republican argument from this past week that, well, gee whiz, most of the Republicans want to force a more withdrawal-oriented policy on the administration, too. But it's those naughty Democrats with their shocking, shocking partisanship that are preventing it.

To steal one of the Daily Howler's favorite phrases, gaze on the empty soul of your press corps.

You would think that the Post editorialists, who cheerfully endorsed creating the Iraq War disaster by supporting the 2003 invasion based on the fraudulent claims about Iraq's non-existent WMDs, would just be flat embarassed to accuse Harry Reid of "cynical politicking and willful blindness to the stakes in Iraq". But you would be mistaken.


Benen notes, based on the Post editorial and David Brooks' partisan Republican ventriloquism on the PBS Newshour last night:

It's worth adding, by the way, that a new meme seems to be quickly emerging within the chattering class: the lack of Senate progress on Iraq legislation isn't Bush's fault (he's vowed to veto any measure that undercut his authority to do what he pleases), or the GOP's fault (the party has voted to filibuster any measure that might pass), but actually Harry Reid's fault.

Have the priests and priestesses of High Broderism ever been more disconnected from the viewpoint of the American public than they are over the Iraq War? Have they ever shown less shame at parroting claims that crassly substitute partisan fantasy for what's happening in the real world?

Benen also links to this story Democrats take uncompromising stance by Noam Levey Los Angeles Times 07/21/07, which lazily types up the Republican talking points. The San Francisco Chronicle weighed in on Thursday with a front-page headline, Dems wield war debate to weaken GOP in 2008 by Edward Epstein 07/19/07. We shouldn't blame Epstein for the headline-writer's wording, though. His actual article is relatively decent, much better than the LA Times piece.

I want to be clear. I'm talking about the chronic problem of the severe dysfunction of our mainstream press here. For the partisan advantage of the Democrats, headlines like "Democrats take uncompromising stance" on withdrawal from Iraq is beneficial to the party, it will make them look better in the eyes of most voters. And I'm happy at that result.

But it also gives the Dems too much credit on the policy side. I've said before and continue to think that partial withdrawal proposals if actually enacted into law would represent major steps in the right direction, i.e., getting US troops out of Iraq. But war critics shouldn't lose sight of three key elements: a fixed date for withdrawal, a complete withdrawal of US troops and a clear policy of no permanent bases in Iraq. Pretty much anything that falls outside those parameters is very likely to become an excuse for prolonging the war, especially with a Republican administration in the White House.

This is a good place to mention another Republican talking point, that the Democratic-led Congress is more unpopular than the President. Congress' rating dropped to that point after the Dems failed to push harder this past spring for enacting a withdrawal proposal, and my understanding is that the polls show that Democratic voters discontent over that is what caused that drop. (Plus, there's a bigger issue that people always tend to rate Congress in general far more poorly than their rate their own Congressional representatives.)

So when Levey writes about the Democrats' allegedly "bellicose, uncompromising legislative strategy" to end American participation in the Iraq War, it's a sloppy, GOP-friendly desription of what happened. But on this issue, it's a good thing politically for the Dems to be perceived that way. Down in paragraph eight, he does allow that Reid and other Democratic critics of the Iraq War have been "brushed off and belittled by the White House" for years - but only by way of explaining how intransigent and in violation of the spirit of High Broderism that the wicked Majority Leader is.

Plus, you can be sure that if a Republican mouthpiece like David Brooks is saying that the person most responsible for prolonging the Iraq War is Harry Reid, then Reid must be doing something very right that the Reps think has real potential to be effective.

And he is. He's forcing the WINOs - the suddenly-common abbreviation for Withdrawal In Name Only advocates like Dick Lugar - to show with their votes how phony their vague handwringing about the war really is. If you read far enough into the LA Times article, you see Reid saying:

"Just because you pass something on a bipartisan basis that has no teeth in it and you can circle and sing 'Kumbaya,' " doesn't mean progress, he said. "We need to do something to change the course of the war in Iraq."

That's what the general public is demanding, and that's what a large majority of the Democratic base is demanding.

But the keepers of our public discourse are shocked, shocked to see that our political process involves partisanship!

How long can a democracy survive with a "press corps" this dysfunctional?

Tags: harry reid, iraq war

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