SUUURGE!!!

Tonight, George W. Bush will make his big speech on "surging" troop levels in Iraq, although apparently he won't use the word "surge" this time. I wish I could have found video of the old Surge ad that featured unexplained couch-jumping, but this hose-and-lawn-chair one will have to do. Incidentally, isn't it quaint how those Neanderthals in the late 90's thought it was a good idea to promote the "carbos" in their beverage? and how they called them carbos instead of carbs?

But back to Iraq, there are two main concerns for the diligent progressive observer: (1) the framing here really does matter - the alleged surge should be called escalation, and (2) the Democrats need to show some backbone in their response to the situation.

Using the word "surge" implies that the increase in Iraq troop levels will be temporary. On a geological timeline, it is true that anything Bush does will be temporary. But outside of that framework, there is really nothing very temporary about 18-24 months, and there is nothing strategically innovative about setting benchmarks for the Iraqi "government". So really it is what it is: an escalation of the existing strategy. Faced with a failing Iraq strategy, Bush will once again adapt by changing PR tactics.

If this is all just window dressing, why all this fuss and bother over PR tactics and framing? As it happens, Americans are dramatically more supportive of a temporary troop increase than they are of an escalation. (Note: still well under 50% of poll respondents support the temporary increase; it just looks like a lot when compared to Bush's approval rating on Iraq at 26%.) But here's the bottom line: people do not support this escalation, especially when they know what it really is. And well they shouldn't, since just like the rest of the administration's activities in Iraq, this one is horribly misguided.

It is difficult to tell precisely what the Democratic response will be, however. It seems as though their big bold breakthrough is going to involve a limp-wristed symbolic resolution. Yet it also sounds like legislators such as Ted Kennedy and John Murtha are planning on blocking it. Can you tell which option I prefer?

Bush has taken a classic Karl Rove tactic here: Democrats were elected in large part to stop the occupation of Iraq, and the first thing the Rove book says to do is attack your opponent right where he is strongest. Bush is therefore testing the Democrats to see who will show up. Will it be the milquetoast Democrats of 2002 and 2003? the ones that lost the 2002 midterms by playing the Republicans' jingoism game and then let themselves be fooled into supporting an unjustified war? Or will it be the principled Democrats who campaigned on standing up to Bush? the ones who eventually overcame their fears of being called troop-haters? If Democrats have truly grown and matured, they will support the troops by keeping them out of a civil war halfway across the globe. If they are ready to slide back into the cesspool they just emerged from, they will settle for a resolution.