Wednesday, July 18, 2007

A Very Peculiar Debate

The Senate decided it wanted to redebate the Iraq War last night. All night.

You'd think that after a declaration of war and all, the debate would be about how to win. But you don't know our Congress under new management. The want to debate the speed of our retreat and winning or losing isn't really an issue:

The 52-47 vote fell far short of the 60 needed to advance the legislation and marked the final act in an all-night session that Democrats engineered to dramatize their opposition to the war.

"Time and the American people are ... on our side," said a defiant Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who has made ending the war the Democrats' top goal since they took control of the Senate in January. "We will do everything in our power to change course in Iraq," he said moments after the vote.



You see, this is a very special kind of debate. A Lefty debate. When the Left says it wants to debate a dubject, it doesn't mean that either side could be persuaded based on the merits. It means we debate until the other side is worn down. It means that the Left says we "haven't debated enough" as long as the Left is losing the debate.


Having lost the debate in the form of a declaration of war based on the nearly two dozen reasons for eliminating Saddam's regime back in 2002, the Left continues that debate even today. Once they win the debate, only then is the debate over. For good.

In that sense, the Senate all-night session is more like a forced re-education camp for the pro-victory side more than it is a traditional debate. The Senate leadership knows the answer it wants, the only question is how long they have to imprison the pro-victory Senators until they convert to the way the new management sees the issue.

So even with this stunt over, don't think the debate is over. It will go on until the leadership forces defeat or until we win. Actually, the debate won't end even with victory, but I won't give a rat's patootie about their opinions then.