The TNR's blog The Plank weighs in on Democratic efficacy and the McGovern Amendment:
There's a sense out there that Democrats have been floundering on Iraq -- which may be true as far as bills-into-law go, but Pelosi's strategy of slowly bringing nervous moderates leftwards seems to be working. Last night's House vote on a bill to fully withdraw troops within 180 days, originally intended as a sure-to-fail opportunity for hard-core progressives to cast the conscience vote they didn't get on the more-nuanced supplemental, drew 171 "yes" votes, a number that even shocked its sponsor, Jim McGovern. Here's a little number-crunching for you: Twelve Blue Dogs voted yes. 27 of 41 freshman Democrats voted yes, including six (Mike Arcuri, Kirsten Gillibrand, John Hall, Steve Kagen, Carol Shea-Porter, and Tim Walz, a veteran) who hail from Republican districts.
We take issue with TNR's characterizing MN-01 as a Republican district. Once upon a time, perhaps, but now southeastern Minnesota is trending distinctly blue in the state house and senate. We'd call MN-01 a swing district. And to judge by the many letters in smalltown dailies and weeklies asking to bring the troops home, the troops are supported universally; the war, not so much.
Over Here
Last night's "Law and Order" episode was ripped from the headlines of the Washington Post, and the fictional Assistant DA Jack McCoy seemed to be channeling what Representative Walz and a lot of real people in southern Minnesota are saying about the VA:
When we send our soldiers, no, strike that, our children to fight in a war of choice don't we have the moral obligation, the patriotic duty, to care for the ones who come home alive, no matter what the cost?
Jim Nicholson has vowed to improve the quality of care in the VA system; meanwhile, reporters from the McClatchy Group of newspapers discovers that the VA has "overstated" its successes. So much for performance-rated bonuses.
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