Decius wrote:

Never mind that the amendment went down to certain defeat. Or that the legislative marathon changed only a single vote in the Senate. Washington's political theater is part of a deliberate political strategy aimed at living rooms across America. By presenting the choice over the future of the Iraq war in the starkest possible terms, Democrats hope to convince Americans of the need to change course and ratchet up the political pressure on Republican lawmakers supporting President Bush.

"The goal of Democrats was clear: to put Republicans on record on where they stand on an unpopular war and to keep Iraq in the news, which is not good for the Bush administration," says Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. "On these two levels, they were successful, even if no new legislation will come out of it. Democrats want Iraq to be for President Bush what Vietnam became for President Johnson: an all-consuming issue, where nothing else can be discussed."

Democrats plan similar votes in the House to force Republicans to express publicly views on a war that has lost the support of most Americans.

In truth, I never meant to imply that what was happening in the senate wasn't entirely political. It was, and is. Even all my ranting about the R's misuse of the filibuster is a discussion of politics, so in that sense, we never really disagreed. I merely took issue with your initial implication that the politics happening here were the cause of the Sunni's actions in Iraq. Of course, timing isn't nothing, but in the grand scheme, we are where we are. The announcement would've come soon, and I'm not at all convinced that *declaring* their unity *makes* them victorious (assuming that word has any meaning in this conflict).

The insurgents there are in the position that they are because of the cocked up war, not anything that's happening in Congress this month. The political wrangling serves, as the above article states, to keep Iraq in the news and force the hands of R's to make themselves accountable.

Secondly, I dislike the term "political theatre" because it carries with it the assumption of frivolity and wankery. I recognize that it has a long history and ought not to mean that, but the majority of the country doesn't anymore. So use of the phrase serves the purposes of the R's who brought it into this debate, to cast the goings on as pointless and self-congratulatory and *inherently* a waste of time. Even if this time was a waste (which I don't think is true), it's dangerous to erode the notion that such activity *cannot* be meaningful.

RE: Insurgents form political front to plan for US pullout