Bipartisanship is alive, if not well, in DC

Great Debates
21

[QUOTE=squeegee]
Setting aside the “blame” part of your comments, congress has cut off funding for a war before, and it didn’t work out the way you’ve projected. The troops came home, poop, pot and all. Look it up.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, Congress has done it twice that I can think of right off the top of my head. First, in Vietnam, in 1973: that was after Nixon decided to withdraw troops, and after the Paris Peace Accords were signed. Second, in Somalia, after the Black Hawk Down incident, Clinton began to withdraw troops. Then Congress passed an amendment which put severe restrictions on the use of funds for military operations.

There are also cases of limiting funds to the military for specific purposes, like prohibiting funds for putting US troops in Cambodia in 1970, or prohibiting covert activities in Nicaragua in (IIRC 1984). Neither of those situations is really comparable to Iraq at this time.

The more salient point is that each of those funding restrictions were enacted into law with the approval of the President. I can name a whole slew of cases where Congress proposed cutting off funds for a military operation and that effort was not successful due to opposition from the White House. Would you like to hear about those?

If you have a case where (a) Congress refused to act to provide money for a military operation, (b) the President opposed the position of Congress, and (c) the position of Congress won out, let me know about it, because I’m utterly unaware of such a thing happening in our history.

So, what is the example you were thinking of?

22

Ravenman, and I mean no (well, little) disrespect, but your description was essentially that Congress cutting off funding would lead to some apocalyptic “stranding the troops” scenario. No preconditions required.

If you want to now load that up with preconditions (“oh, Congress really meant it”), that’s your lookout, but your rhetoric now does not match your previous post, and is frankly dishonest and, well, sniveling. Please man up, stop quoting scripture, and argue honestly.

23

Sigh, I regret the “sniveling” part of my comments above; that was over the top and I withdraw the comment.

24

[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]

However, as anyone who pays even the slightest attention to what actually happens in congress and in DC could observe, bipartisanship occurs regularly. It is achieved by the Democrats willfully capitulating to the Republicans on nearly every substantive issue imaginable (see link below).

How will any Democrat who espouses unity and bipartisanship change this situation? Will he or she somehow find more or different ways to agree to with the Republicans? Will he or she somehow convince a minority opposition party with a long and well-established track record of marching in lockstep to somehow be nice sometimes?
[/QUOTE]
Well, I guess that depends on who you ask. If you were to ask George Lakoff, he’d tell you

I think that’s a good distinction.

25

My head just exploded.

26

[QUOTE=Shayna]
I think that’s a good distinction.
[/QUOTE]
Really? So what are the “central American values” that would generate a bipartisan solution on warrantless wiretapping, for example?

What are these “central American values” period?

27

[QUOTE=squeegee]
Ravenman, and I mean no (well, little) disrespect, but your description was essentially that Congress cutting off funding would lead to some apocalyptic “stranding the troops” scenario. No preconditions required.

If you want to now load that up with preconditions (“oh, Congress really meant it”), that’s your lookout, but your rhetoric now does not match your previous post, and is frankly dishonest and, well, sniveling. Please man up, stop quoting scripture, and argue honestly.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t understand what you’re saying, especially the “preconditions” or the “Congress really meant it” part. You said Congress has cut off funds before, but I pointed out that each time it has happened it has been with the assent of the White House, and in every case I’m aware of, the President had already made the decision to withdraw troops before funds were cut off. That is not the case with Iraq.

If your argument is that Congress can simply cut off funds for Iraq and the troops will automatically come home because it has been done before, then that claim must be subject to scrutiny. As it happens, the claim doesn’t even pass the most casual analysis.

As far as dishonesty, it would be dishonest of me to admit I’m wrong when I scratch the surface of your claim to expose that your argument is superficial and not historically accurate.

Now, if you have an example of a case where the Congress forced the withdrawal of troops from some war over the objections of the President by using the power of the purse, I don’t claim omnipotent knowledge of how every war in American history has ended. It could be that there are examples of this, but I am not aware of them. You have your opportunity to prove your case, but don’t someone not to challenge the substance of your claim.

Otherwise, it just looks like you are only offering a superficial claim that you can’t support under even the slightest degree of scrutiny, and instead accuse me of some misdeed. That’s not cricket.

(And no worries about the “sniveling” comment, no harm done.)

28

Ravenman, I have time for just a quick comment, but can check in later in detail.

Briefly your distinction still strikes me as a “true scottsman” approach, winnowing out every example that doesn’t fit somehow, which in your view includes every example. I still maintain that a) funding has been cut for wars by legislators (yes, with agreement by the executive. So what?) and b) troops were indeed not stranded in the field. The apocalyptic scenario you outline above (poop and pots and all that) strikes me as silly and stretches things far beyond the boundaries of likelyhood.

29

[QUOTE=Shodan]
Well, OK. You Dems have control of both houses, and a reasonable chance at the White House next year. So how about some of those changes you promised?
[/QUOTE]
A little civics lesson for you; it takes 60 votes to control the senate. We will control it next year.

30

[QUOTE=squeegee]
Ravenman, I have time for just a quick comment, but can check in later in detail.
[/QUOTE]
I see where you’re coming from, I strongly disagree, but maybe we ought to take this conversation elsewhere, as it is kind of a hijack from the main point of the thread.

31

[QUOTE=Ravenman]
I’m proceeding along the lines that politics is the art of the possible.
[/quote]
That’s reasonable.

In the interest of clarity, though, it’s probably not a bad idea to distinguish between what is technically possible and what is politically feasible. There can be a lot of disagreement about the latter, after all.

And this is where politics as the art of the possible comes in. What those polls also showed was that the vast majority of Americans wanted us out, presumably in some sort of orderly withdrawal, over the following year or two.

It’s the job of the politicians opposing the Administration to get the message across to the American people that the President won’t let that 1-2 year orderly withdrawal happen - so the choices are to (a) remain in Iraq until sometime in the next Administration, or (b) force the President’s hand via a funding cutoff.

After they had gotten that message through to the American people (which would have probably taken an organized effort on the Dems’ part, lasting a number of weeks), they could have seen which option the American people preferred, and acted accordingly.

Maybe the funding cutoff would have been politically possible, or maybe not - but until the real nature of the choice was conveyed to the public, there was no way of knowing.