Minimizing the damage?

Christy at FDL looks at the maneuvering by Dems so they're not painted as the 'surrender monkeys' they were after Vietnam. You remember the lines; "if we were only committed to victory", "if we would have sent more troops", "the peaceniks and Democrats sabotaged the war effort". She takes a quote from Kevin Drum:

The question here isn't so much about withdrawal, which I believe Ackerman, Farley, and Lemieux all support, but about how to handle withdrawal politically in order to minimize damage to the Democratic Party.

It's real simple. The Dems who supported the war have to admit they were wrong and ask forgiveness. Period. [If the Dem Presidential candidate in '08 voted for the war, they'd better apologize before they get my vote] Second, they have to call it what it was, an illegal act of war. Third, they have to impeach the President and Vice-President and put them on trial for war crimes. [If the Dem Presidential candidate in '08 doesn't support impeachment, they don't get my vote] It's not the fact that the Dems want to leave Iraq, but the fact the war was illegal in the first place and should never have happened. While some Dems were culpable in giving the Chimp the authority, they sure as hell didn't dream up this craziness.

No one paid the price for Vietnam except the 58,000 troops whose names are on that black marble wall in Washington. They have to show, decisively, that we demand accountability from our leaders and to prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that invading Iraq was an illegal act. Hopefully, Henry Waxman and John Conyers and the rest can bring the illegalities to light and get them on the record. After the Clinton/Lewinsky fiasco the Rethugs fabricated, impeachment is the only avenue at this point. If we do not impeach, it will say we take more offense at an extramarital blowjob than we do the premeditated murder of 3,000 U.S. troops and countless Iraqis.

It's not time to play CYA on the Dems' part. It's time to take the high road and let the chips fall where they may. Christy says it best at the end:

Even better, if the chorus of ridicule over Bush's cowardly posturing from a strong, morally based Democratic party is effective enough, we may even browbeat the loser into changing course in Iraq. Why should we be content with just playing the role that Republicans want us to play?

And just an addendum to those who can't wait to see Cheney sweat on the witness stand in the Scooter Libby trial: Do not think for a second Dick Cheney will ever see the inside of a courtroom, and do not think there will be any new revelations from it. In fact, I think the Chimp will pardon Libby long before the jury is seated.