Demagoguery blowback

Thomas Sowell:

One of the dangers in being a demagogue is that some of your own supporters -- those who take you literally -- can turn against you when you start letting your actions be influenced by realities, instead of following the logic of your ringing rhetoric.

That is what seems to be happening to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other liberal Democrats in Congress.

Anti-war protesters in Washington and outside her home in San Francisco are denouncing Pelosi and other Congressional Democrats for not cutting off the money to fight the war in Iraq.

If the war in Iraq is such an unnecessary and futile expenditure of blood and treasure as Pelosi et al. have been saying, why not put an end to it?

But to do that would mean taking responsibility for the consequences -- and those consequences would be disastrous and lasting. They would probably still be lasting when the 2008 elections come around.

The Democrats cannot risk that. They have taken over Congress by a very clever and very disciplined strategy of constantly criticizing the Republicans, without taking the risk of presenting an alternative for whose results they can be held responsible.

There is no sign that they want to change that politically winning strategy now. Their non-binding resolutions against the war are a perfect expression of that strategy.

These resolutions put them on record as being against the war without taking the responsibility for ending it.

Unfortunately for the Congressional Democrats, their left-wing supporters have taken the anti-war rhetoric of Pelosi, Murtha, et al., at face value and consider it a betrayal that they talk the talk but will not walk the walk.

...

By their conduct they put the lie to E.J. Dionne's theory on a surging anti war tide. Dionne continues to make the mistake of conflating dissatisfaction numbers with support for losing the war which is still a minority in this country. If it were a majority the anti war pukes would not have to be trying to take over the speakers office. He is also wrong about the opposition to the Democrats strategy for defeat hurting Republicans. The passion on the Republican side is for victory and their is no constituency for defeat. Even Chuck Hagel must recognize that with his * standing in the polls.

Frank Warner notes the polling trends are running against E.J. "The portion of Americans who believe the war is going “very well” or “fairly well” for the United States increased from the all-time low of 30 percent in February to 40 percent this month." I still maintain that the numbers who want to lose are still a minority. These "how is it going" polls do not suggest that people want to lose anyway.