House Of Cards

Martin Peretz, editor of The New Republic, pens an op-ed in today's Opinion Journal that examines the non-binding bit of bad political theater that has been playing out in Washington. To say he's a bit hard on the Democrats is to vastly understate the case. In careful, measured tone, he applies a scalpel an dismembers the politics of the whole charade. But he also takes a hard look at the goals of the war and passes a harsh judgment. But not on the Republicans.

The Democratic opposition went through a similar process, but in the reverse. It is true that liberals are keenly aware of difference, and lovingly celebrate difference. That is what multiculturalism is about, and moving toward open borders too. But they do not like to see the virulence of diversity–the historical persistence of the enmity of one element of the crazy quilt for the other, even one seemingly quite akin to the other. The liberal appreciation of the hateful dimensions of tribal and clannish identity generally extended no further than the blood rituals of "The Sopranos." Now they are so much wiser, and sagely lecture everyone within earshot about the permanent hatreds between Sunni and Shia, although their House chairman of intelligence oversight had not the foggiest notion of who was in discord and what the discord was about. In any case, they counsel smugness, since none of these inter- and intra-sectarian hostilities will ever come to our shores.

Where, then, are we in the war? No one knows exactly what to do about it. Everybody knows that we are in trouble. Even those of us who are skeptical about the ideological inclinations of many Democrats cannot but dignify the national anxiety that they represent. The House has passed a nonbinding resolution supporting our troops already in Iraq and disapproving the dispatch of 20,000 more. The measure is, strategically speaking, pointless: The new troops are already on their way. The Senate will figure out how to make its own sense of the politically fraught perplexity. Now, both houses of Congress are perfectly entitled to debate anything of this magnitude. Indeed, they have a responsibility to do so. A war should not shut down free opinion, or–worse yet–informed opinion. So the attempt of the House minority leader, John Boehner, to scare them away from a serious debate with demagogic references to the American Revolution is unseemly. This is a weighty war, very weighty. The absence of a serious debate about its ends and its means would rightly earn the national legislature the contempt of all Americans.

But the formula that the House Democratic leadership fixed on was a charade. It allowed each of the 435 representatives five minutes at the podium, enough for them to posture for local television but not so much that anybody can say anything serious, let alone deep or even brave. And the resolution's text itself is rather cowardly. For, since it purports to be a declaration of support for American soldiers actually fighting in Iraq–whatever "support" actually means–why does it criticize the only help that can possibly enable the military in the war: more soldiers and more weapons? And, if the Democrats do not want the war to be continued, then they should bring forth legislation either cutting funds or setting a date for withdrawal, in the manner of George McGovern. There is no rationale for troops in terrible danger to be held hostage to the political expediency of nervous Democrats, who are not prepared to do what they really mean to do and to say what they really mean to say.

Peretz is no fan of the administration and not at all happy about the direction the war has taken. Yet he also is honest about pointing out that downside of a failure in Iraq to the nation and to liberalism in general. He is brutally honest about the empty showboating that the posturing politicians are indulging in right now. There is no courage involved in the theatrics, only smugness and opportunism.