Political Blog

I went to dailykos.com where the blogger, kos, criticized the Abercrombie Bill with support from the article “House Dems signal a shift on Iraq plans.” The Abercrombie Bill, as put by Mike Soraghan, “would order Bush to draft plans to withdraw from Iraq but not require them to be implemented.” Kos’s blog,“pre-emptive capitulation in the House, as well,” points out the fallacies in the Abercrombie Bill to prove his points that “Democrats have to pre-emptively surrender for fear that ‘some’ might criticize them.”
The blog first points out that the article shows the support for the bill, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (a Democrat) is in favor of the bipartisan legislation, along with the authors of the bill, Neil Abercrombie and John Tanner (also Democrats). The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (a Democrat), already put the Abercrombie Bill off before Congress’s break in August. The article claimed that Pelosi has “been encouraging Democratic representatives to employ any personal relationships they’ve developed with Republicans to find bipartisan ideas for Iraq legislation.”
After pointing out these major Democratic players, the blog shows the fallacy in the Abercrombie Bill. Kos made the rhetorical question “does this bill even pass the logic test?” While he does not go on to show the non sequitur in the bill, it is easy to see. The purpose of a bill is to become a law, and then to have that law enforced to create a positive change. This bill requires the president only to create a plan for troop withdrawal; the bill doesn’t require that he actually goes through with his plan.
Kos then uses a statement made from Pelosi, “We probably will take it (the Abercrombie Bill) up with another piece of legislation that I’m not about to announce right now,” This statement shows that she is not even certain that she will take up a bill that does nothing out of fear of offending. Furthermore, the article commented on how Pelosi has been encouraging bipartisan relationships. Even though the bill has had bipartisan support, Pelosi shied away from it, and is only now looking to possibly bring it to the floor. Kos points out that Pelosi has been searching for bipartisan support in vain, because Democrats control both the House and the Senate.
To sum up the argument, Kos plainly showed that the Democrats do not need this bill. Aside from the point that the bill does nothing, he makes the points that Democrats don’t need bipartisanism to get a bill passed, and furthermore, there is already some bipartisanism on the issue of the safest troop withdrawal. Kos then concluded by stating the two well-known Democrats running for president, Clinton and Obama, are also afraid of the issue and its possible effect on their campaign, so they are sticking to “banal fluff.” After looking over the article, it is easy to see that Kos utilized the best points in the article to make his argument. Examining the situation further, Democrats have had control now since 2006, and have still failed to take noticeable action. Even now, they continue to debate over a bill that does nothing for the war effort. Overall, Kos made well-supported and convincing arguments on Democrats fearing criticism.