The Mouse That Never Roars

Like the old Quaker State oil commercial used to say, "We know better":

As opposition grows among his own base of liberal Democrats, President Barack Obama is bracing for a tough sell of his apparent decision to commit tens of thousands of new U.S. forces to the stalemated war in Afghanistan.

Military officials and others expect Obama to settle on a middle-ground option that would deploy an eventual 32,000 to 35,000 U.S. forces to the 8-year-old conflict, according to the Associated Press. That rough figure has stood as the most likely option since before Obama's last large war council meeting earlier this month, when he tasked military planners with rearranging the timing and makeup of some of the deployments.

Obama held the tenth and final meeting of his Afghanistan strategy review since mid-September on Monday night. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the president left the war council meeting without announcing a decision to the group or to aides, but that no more meetings are planned, the AP reported.

Here's the reality: Red Barry is in what college basketball used to call a "four corners".  A stall.  Trying to run out the clock.  All his "dithering" on General McChrystal's request for forty thousand more troops to apply the "Surge" strategy that worked so effectively in Iraq to Afghanistan isn't a matter of The One being indecisive or wishy-washy or vacillating; it's about delaying as long as possible until the situation on the ground deteriorates past the point of no return, beyond which victory will become practically impossible.  Then (so he has convinced himself) he can announce that "victory is impossible," the war is lost, and he must act "in the interests of American servicepeople" to withdraw from Afghanistan and entrust the country to his "partners in peace," the Afghan Taliban.  And when he his approval numbers sink into Truman territory for becoming the second American president (after LBJ) to deliberately sabotage and lose a war, he can always (he's convinced himself) blame it all on George W. Bush for "taking his eye off the ball" in Afghanistan with his Iraq "obsession," without which the "real war on terror" could have been won "years ago" instead of "sticking him" with an "unwinnable war".

You can't convince me his base doesn't know this.  Which is why there is no reason to take the following seriously.

Except for one detail, anyway:

But opposition is growing within the liberal ranks of the Democratic Party, which is already angry over the president’s reluctance to fully embrace a public option on healthcare reform. Democratic allies of the president, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, and Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, have become more outspoken on the war in other forums as well.

Representative David Obey, D-WI, who chairs the powerful House Appropriations Committee, reiterated his opposition to escalating U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, and said Monday that if President Obama does approve an increase in troop levels, the war should financed by a surtax on the rich.

Obey argued that the tax should be paid by all taxpayers, with rates ranging from 1% for lower wage earners to 5% for the wealthy. He proposed a similar tax to pay for ongoing military operations in Iraq in 2007, only to have the idea dismissed out of hand by Pelosi, who had just become Speaker of the House.

Obey’s demand for a new war tax echoes a similar call by Levin, who recently told Bloomberg's Al Hunt that he favors a new tax on Americans earning more than $200,000 a year to pay for sending any additional troops.

"I want the president and every American to think ahead of time about what it means if you do add to our involvement in Afghanistan," Obey told ABC News. "I am no military strategist, but I don't believe we have the tools to accomplish our mission in Afghanistan because you have to have functioning, effective government and there isn't one in Afghanistan. There isn't one in Pakistan either."

No, Obey isn't any military strategist, but he certainly is a gaveled thief, and recognizes pretty much everything as a hook for his party's insatiable confiscatory appetites.  And don't count on Crazy Nancy slapping him down this time; three years ago she had just taken over as Speaker and didn't want to let the cat of her real intentions out of the bag yet.  I'd say after the passage of House BarryCare that that bag has been reduced past even its constituent quarks and muons by this time.

In the bigger picture, though, we have the not all that distant historical example of what the Democrat rank & file does AND says when confronted by a president of their own party who makes any decision or takes any action they don't like.  After they got slaughtered in the 1994 midterms, Bill Clinton couldn't leave the decimated husk of a party in his dust fast enough on his way towards the center.  It set the pattern for the remaining six years of his presidency, including the shamelessness with which he sucked the DNC dry to bankroll his own 1996 re-election at the expense of regaining House and/or Senate majorities.  And how did congressional Donks react?  Like bootlicking supplicants.  Why?  Because Sick Willie was the only thing standing between their party and complete powerlessness.  An intra-party civil war would have taken them straight over the edge and into the abyss.

Recall in this case that we're still a year away from the 2010 midterms.  One can see Blue Dogs trying to distance themselves from B.O. as next year progresses, but Obamunists?  Not a chance.  They won't turn on him at least until after the massacre, and probably not even then.  Unlike Mr. Bill, their god really and truly is one of them.  And they are way, way past the point of divesting themselves from their eternal commitment to him.

The Left will get what it wants on Afghanistan; just not the way they wanted it.  And they'll go down with Barry's ship as well.