It's a painful irony for Democrats: In the space of a year, the Iraq war that was the source of party's resurgence in Congress became the measure of its impotence.
There is no irony. There was a translation problem. The problem is, after the Democrats campaigned last year with an explicit message that they were not going to undermine the Iraq War, once in power the Leftist leaders of Congress worked on the assumption that the public elected them to undermine the Iraq War. The Leftist leaders understood, as did their nutroots support, that they truly did want American defeat but prior to the election couldn't admit that to the patriotic public of all political stripes who aren't eager for American defeat against montstrous enemies.
The problem for the Left is that although the public did indeed react to the escalating violence in the Iraq War by electing enough Democrats to swing Congress, the public was never pro-defeat. Sure, the Left is disappointed by the failure of Congress to legislate defeat, but the broader pool of Democrats would rather win than lose the war. Independents and Republicans feel that way more so.
So when Congress relentlessly tried but failed to lose the war over the summer rather than change the war, the non-Left wasn't comfortable. Indeed, as the administration changed the war as the public wanted, Congress refused to admit that any change was happening. Worse, Congress persisted in promoting defeat even as evidence of accumulating success rolled out, so the non-left annoyance with Congress deepened.
At some level, the leaders of Congress understood that the public did not want defeat because Congressional majority leaders refused to speak in terms of winning or losing. Instead they trotted out terms designed to disguise retreat or promoted policies designed to indirectly force retreat. If these leaders truly believed they had a mandate to run away and lose, wouldn't they have simply advocated retreat openly?
Congress claimed a mandate for losing in Iraq that they did not publicly claim to want prior to the elections, and the public did not reward them in the opinion polls this last year for pursuing our defeat after the election.
Like so much about the war, the "reality-based community" leaders saw in our 2006 elections what they wanted to see and heard what they wanted to hear. We're not up to four bars yet, but as we win the war and the opinion polls continue to turn around, will the reality of what our people want finally sink in?
