Redstate

losing isn't so bad once you get used to it

By streiff Posted in Democrats — Comments (16) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Saying the coming weeks will be "one of the last opportunities" to alter the course of the war, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said he is now willing to compromise with Republicans to find ways to limit troop deployments in Iraq.

Reid acknowledged that his previous firm demand for a spring withdrawal deadline had become an obstacle for a small but growing number of Republicans who have said they want to end the war but have been unwilling to set a timeline.

This is a stunning admission by Reid and I think will be, in the fullness of time, recognized as a turning point in the debate on the war. In only eight months Reid has gone from promising to end the war to admitting he can't.

Read on.

Unlike the dKos and MoveOn types, I think that Reid's opposition to the war was prosaic to a most ordinary degree. He was searching for a political advantage. (Don't get me wrong here, I have much more respect for someone who opposes the war on the grounds of tawdry political opportunism than those who believe placing 25 million people under the rule of al Qaeda and Ahmadinejad is a neutral act, this alone places Reid on a higher moral plane than most of Nancy Pelosi's caucus.) He is keenly aware of the Democrats's vulnerability on any issue dealing with the safety of Americans and wished to remove Iraq as an issue in the 2008 election. If you understand that one fact, you understand Reid's motivations and the danger he is in.

The Petraeus report, at least as we understand the outlines of it, when taken in the context of a downward trend in highly photogenic mass casualty attacks, significant political progress at the local and provincial level, and the indications of shifts in the rigid positions that have prevented the establishment of an effective national government will make campaigning on a platform of advocating defeat a tricky proposition in 2008.

There is no doubt that Harry Reid's tenure as Senate Majority Leader will be viewed as one of supine arrogance: a do-nothing's do-nothing who was never able to transition from a role as a stumblingblock to progress to one of a leader with an agenda but a do-nothing who, nevertheless, was obsessed with his pork and percs.

In the end, he may actually have been the right man at the right time to allow the Long War to continue.