The "Loyal" Opposition... On a mailing list I'm on someone made the point that instead of trying to fix the present situation, the opposition (don't know why she didn't say the Democrats, but I like this british way of putting it :) was using it for political advantage. That had me thinking. It's of course true. But what other options are available to them?

On the one hand they should feel more responsible, as they've contributed to the situation by supporting Bush's decisions about war and taxes at every point. On the other hand, fighting wouldn't have done much good; if I remember correctly, for each vote (war and the tax cuts), the R's controlled the legislature. There are undoubtedly backstage things they could have fought for, but I'm not wise enough in the ways of the Congress to know what they are.

Re the Iraq war, a lot of them equivocated appropriately at the time, in my opinion. They supported it enough to not be tarred anti-American, but opposed things enough in principle to be somewhat credible in their criticisms now. Too bad that stance had to be joined to a "yes" vote, but honestly, the Bushies would have attacked iraq no matter what Congress did. (Does Congress have the power to recall troops that have been sent under executive privliege?) I never was a fan of Dean's pure anti-war stance because it was hard to be purely against a war that did get rid of one of the worst dictators of his time. From this perspective, the "OK, we'll let you go to war, but if you screw it up don't say we didn't warn ya" stance of Kerry and Edwards and other senators gives them a firm foundation at this point in time, even if it sounded horrible before.
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