"A split over the war, the wimp thing, and how to win," read a Philadelphia Inquirer headline on Sunday. "Democrats Split Over Position on Iraq War," followed the Washington Post yesterday. "Democrats are Split on Questioning Roberts," the New York Timeswrote the same day.

Since we wrote about the "split" over Roberts last week, let's turn to Iraq. The mainstream media are playing the story as a stereotypical conflict between the Democrats' liberal base and centrist establishment. That's partially true. But what the Iraq debate really exposes is an insulated, timid, unaccountable DC elite ("The Strategic Class") that is unable to spot its mistakes and correct them. "The difficulty of coming to a unified position is that for a lot of people who voted for it, they have to decide whether they can admit that they were misled," says party strategist Steve Elmendorf, a former chief of staff to Rep. Dick Gephardt.

Instead of adapting to meet the bloody realities on the ground in Iraq or the profound shift against the war in public opinion polls at home, party leaders like Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid are sticking to a flawed stay-the-course strategy. Bold bipartisan criticism of the war from Democrat Russ Feingold and Republican Chuck Hagel has yet to sink in. Former Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry presents a prime example: "Credit the Democrats for not trying to pour more gasoline on the fire, even if they're not particularly unified in their message," McCurry told the Post. "Democrats could jump all over them and try to pin Bush down on it, but I'm not sure it would do anything but make things worse. The smartest thing for Democrats to do is be supportive." Translation: Democrats should help prolong the war, not end it.

John Kerry tried a similar tack and voters didn't buy it. Yet old habits die hard. A DCCC analysis of Iraq war vet Paul Hackett's near victory in a rock-solid Republican district incredibly made no mention of Iraq. A new Democracy Corps memo warned Democrats against adopting an antiwar position. The McCarthyite DLC accuses war critics of "anti-American bias."

This is both bad politics and bad policy.

"Bad Iraq News Worries Some in GOP in '06," the Times reported last week. "There is no enthusiasm for this war," said Tennessee Republican Rep. John Duncan. "It certainly is not going to help Republican candidates, I can tell you that much." Added conservative mastermind Grover Norquist, "If Iraq is in the rearview mirror in the '06 election, the Republicans will do fine. But if it's still in the windshield, there are problems."

Defense expert Juliette Kayyem nailed the policy component in a must-read post Sunday at TPMCafe. "The question--what about Iraq--seems to me to be the pivotal, and only, question for Democrats right now," Kayyem writes. "What should the Dems be saying? Not more troops, please. The fact that many Democratic leaders are the ones clamoring for more troops, long after the American public has abadoned them on this one, is disconcerting to say the least. We have long passed that point."

Kayyem then admits what so few of her fellow Democrats have been willing to: "This was our war too. We ought, as a party, to be saying that we were wrong, and we ought to be saying it now. The notion that all we are complaining about is how they waged this war, rather than the war itself, strikes me as not truthful. It was--both from its inception, its reasoning, and its engagement --a bad war.

This is where the Democrats differ from Republicans, and where we are (at least from my reading of the polls) consistent with the American public. If we can't at least say that, then, to be honest, we have no reason to win elections."

Amen. It needn't take another 28 months.

© 2005 The Nation

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