It's no exaggeration to call the Capitulation Vote cowardly and even traitorous. The 'support our troops' lie has been debunked ably on the front page so I'm not going to repeat those arguments here. Instead I'm going to look forward to the likely consequences, and back at the opportunity that's being lost here.
Firstly, as I pointed out in an earlier - unfortunately prescient - comment, the reality is that with the current state of play, the netroots on the Left is equivalent to the Christian Right.
The job of the Christian Right isn't to set policy, it's to be bilked for money and for votes. The corporate Right considers the Christians an embarrassment and - in all honesty - a bit of a joke.
While it's true that Washington has been fundie-fied to some extent, the aim hasn't been to declare the US as the New Republic of Gilead. Instead the graduates for Liberty University are there to fill posts where they will act as loyal worker bees, who can be relied on to do as they're told.
The dynamic works like this - the corporate Right throws the fundies some red meat every so often. But astute Washington watchers will notice that the promises never amount to much. Abortion is still legal in most of the country, and gay marriage is now allowed in some states. And while a useful pile of tax money has been diverted to ideologically loaded programs such as abstinence promotion, these programs are far smaller than they could be.
If Bush wanted to satisfy the base he certainly could - and it would be a tempting choice, as an easy Republican vote winner.
The reason he doesn't is because it's not that important to him. He'll make the right noises about it in public. But off the record, the Rovian reality is that the fundies have played their part in the last couple of election cycles. And that's as far as policy-making interest goes.
The real point of the exercise is profit for Halliburton, Bechtel and the other main players in the Military/Industrial cartel. These corporations are happy to use the fundies as wind-up clockwork issue-voters. But they have bigger aims than intimidating gays and bombing Planned Parenthood clinics.
The netroots, as we've discovered this week, play a similar role on the Left. We've been screwed far more quickly and far more painfully than the fundies were. But we're now in a place that's painfully ironic, considering that the netroots were deliberately modelled on the fundie ability to proselytise, gather support and build networks.
The most important political axis isn't between the Left and Right, but between Washington insiders and outsiders. The insiders consider themselves a cozy club, and look after their own. While there are certainly politicians of genuine strength and conviction - on both sides, even - rather too many insiders see voters as a useful resource rather than as democratic equals.
This isn't news. What's news is the scale of the disaster that this vote will heap onto the so-far loyal netroots, and the rest of the population, both in the US and elsewhere.
Let's game out what would happen if defunding had been an option.
In Option 1, Bush blinks. The troops are home by the end of the year. If Bush blinks, he becomes politically radioactive with his base. Approval would most likely sink down to the low 20s, or even lower. Impeachment would become realistic and even likely, because the Rs would want to put as much clear water between themselves and the loser president as possible.
In Option 2, Bush doesn't blink. The rhetoric about 'supporting our troops' is ratcheted up with a media campaign. As the funding deadline approaches, talking points about blackmailing the war effort are all over the TV channels.
The problem is - no one believes this. Bush is living in his bubble world. Most people simply do not support the war. And while only a minority support defunding, any campaign could easily be derailed with a few carefully targetted Vote Vet ads. The ads are political dynamite, because it's impossible to argue that the troops are being supported when the troops themselves say otherwise.
The Dems hold all the cards here. And even with an approval bounce for Bush - likely just for showing some spine - the loser president doesn't have what it takes to hold on. At least not unless he declares himself Emperor.
My reading of the situation is that a stand-off would lead to a consitutional crisis. And Bush would eventually be forced to blink by his own party, because he would be so radioactively unpopular that the Rs would see their chances in 08 disappearing faster than contractors with a suitcase full of cash.
Interestingly, we're now back to Option 1, where a fatally weakened loser president can be put through impeachement proceedings.
The conclusion is that the vote isn't just about a supplemental. It's about accepting or denying the entire Bush presidency.
It's about accepting or denying
Wiretapping
Torture
Pre-emptive war
Gitmo
Military tribunals
Contempt for the Geneva conventions
Political accountability
The primacy of the Constitution
Iraq, important as it is, is almost a sideshow here. The vote is effectively a vote of confidence - or not - in George W. Bush.
And with capitulation, the prospect of impeachment and accountability disappears. While the Iraqis won't be emboldened, Bush certainly will. Not only will more people die uselessly in Iraq, but having gotten away with this one war, Bush will feel justified in extending the conflict to Iran - and beyond.
At this point, anyone who believes that this is about 'support our troops' needs a bucket of cold water and a slap in the face for being so gullible and naive.
The bitterly cynical background truth of the Iraq war is that every time a soldier dies or a helicopter goes down, someone on Wall Street pops a champagne cork. It's more money for the death machine makers. And if families are being destroyed and individuals are being maimed, they truly don't care.
It's obviously hard to accept that the truth really is that cynical. But that is what's going on here. And that's what has been going on here since the start.
So what is to be done? Kos's original book was called Crashing the Gates, and that's more necessary now than it's ever been.
Huge swathes of the Beltway establishment are rotten with terminal corruption. This has been the most corrupt administration in history, and it has sold its military and its own people, never mind the people of other countries, down the river, just so that a handful of bloated corporate ticks can suck some last few drops of blood-money out of the body politic.
Forget tax and spend - this is the politics of tax and screw. Tax dollars are going straight into the gaping digestive tract of a murderous flesh-eating parasite which has cloaked itself in false patriotism while chewing on the true values of the US and the rest of the Western world, and eating them from the inside out.
And while some Dems are stupid enough to believe the rhetoric and weak enough to step back from the bullying, the even more appalling truth is that others are on the inside, feeding from the same trough.
It has to end. Clearly.
So this vote doesn't mean the war has been lost. But it could - and should - mean that war has been declared by the netroots to take back the political machine.
The issue isn't just Iraq. Or even Iran. It's not about torture or Gitmo.
It's about restoring true democracy, and unvarnished humanity and decency - and ending the wretched rule of the putrid and revolting Beltway money cult, before it decides that we're all as expendable as it secretly believes the Iraqis and the troops are.