Only Words

With George W. Bush intent on escalating the war in Iraq, Congressional Democrats face a choice: Do they pass legislation (like the Carl Levin-backed Senate resolution) that condemns the escalation but does nothing to stop it, or do they attempt to use their constitutional authority to allocate funds to prevent the escalation from actually happening, as Senator Edward Kennedy proposes in the legislation he has sponsored? Hillary Clinton has lined up on the former side, Barack Obama, seemingly (though still unclear), on the latter. The choice promises to be the central question Democrats face over the next two years: Will their opposition be one of words or of deeds?

This question carries more urgency now that Democrats are finally in a position to shape policy. "Six months ago, I would have been thrilled with a Senate resolution condemning the war," a net-savvy progressive organizer recently told me. "Now it seems kind of wimpy." Under the GOP Congress and Bush White House, all the Democrats had was their ability to spread their message across platforms and communicate to voters their opposition to the Republican agenda, a reality not lost on the much-maligned netroots. That said, as important as message was, it was easy for an Internet-powered grassroots progressive movement--which uses media (e-mail and blogs) that are logocentric by their very nature--to make a fetish of it. When a Democrat, even a conservative one like Robert Byrd, gave a particularly eloquent condemnation of the war in Iraq or the abuses at Guantánamo, he would garner approving quotes and links. But evaluating politicians chiefly by their rhetorical passion made for some strange bedfellows: Many supported Paul Hackett over a much more progressive, though less bombastic, Sherrod Brown, and Jim Webb, who is downright conservative on some issues, became a progressive cause célèbre.

But now Democrats have some real power, and we must rethink how to evaluate their performance. What are the relative values of words and deeds--speechifying and legislating? It's a question that's been gnawing at many in the blogosphere who worked hard to bring the Democratic Congress about. "Now that we are in the majority, we need to move past endless parsing of the words our leaders say, and focus instead on the policies they intend to pursue," wrote MyDD's Chris Bowers in response to outrage in the blogosphere over a quote from Harry Reid that appeared to support escalation. "It was ridiculous in the first place to think that Reid supported troop escalation in Iraq, considering that he voted for a timeline thirteen months ago.... We are not in the minority anymore, and we are not Republicans...this means that our politics is more than our message. It is time we started acting that way." Duncan Black, on his blog, Eschaton, echoed Bowers's sentiments: "We all need to come to terms with...the fact that the Democrats actually have power now. Messaging is still important, and they still shouldn't screw it up. But it isn't the only power they have now, and it isn't the most important power they have."

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