Like the ghost of Hamlet’s father haunting Elsinore Castle,
antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan appeared at the Capitol this week to send the new
Democratic leaders a clear message: Remember me.
“Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic leadership can no longer tell
us what is on the table,” Sheehan said on Wednesday, after commandeering a set of
microphones from Democratic Rep. Rahm Emanuel. “We are the ones
that put them in power and they are not including the peace
movement.”
Emanuel, the Illinois Representative who is credited with being
one of the architects of his party’s takeover of Congress, was
holding a press conference on ethics reform when Sheehan and dozens
of antiwar protestors shouted him down with chants of “de-escalate,
investigate, troops home now.” Emanuel retreated behind closed
doors as Sheehan claimed the stage.
Although the incident was a just a footnote to this week’s
coronation of Nancy Pelosi as the new Speaker of the House, it is
an indication of the tenuous position the new Democratic majority
finds itself in. Democrats want to compile a set of accomplishments
and shun the more radical elements of their party to demonstrate to
voters that they can be trusted to govern responsibly, but by doing
so they risk alienating the vehemently anti-war base of their party
who helped put them in power.
After last year’s midterm elections, many conservatives
suggested that once in power, Democrats would show voters that they
are dominated by the radical left of their party, creating the
opening for a newly rehabilitated Republican Party to take back
Congress in 2008.
All indications are that the Democratic leadership will do their
best to prove the conservative caricature of their party wrong. The
Democrats’ much publicized agenda for their first “100 hours” includes
hiking the minimum wage, implementing the recommendations of the
9/11 Commission, allowing the government to negotiate lower
prescription drug prices and cutting interest rates on student
loans. While these measures may not be popular among conservatives,
they make it difficult to paint Democrats as “radicals.” For
instance, President Bush is expected to sign the minimum wage
increase, which has the support
of 80 percent of Americans.
Any attempt by Democrats to move too far to the left will be
tempered by the reality that a sizable chunk of their caucus is
comprised of conservative Democrats who could be vulnerable in 2008
if they vote in lock step with the party’s left wing. There are 60
House Democrats who were elected in districts that Bush carried in
2004, according to Americans for Tax Reform.
The problem for the Democrats is that much of their base worked
to get them elected on the premise that it would lead to a
withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. So far, in attempting to come
across as responsible, Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid have dismissed calls for de-funding the war effort —
the one action the Congress could take short of impeachment to put
an end to the war. Reid even said he
could support sending more troops to Iraq if it was temporary and
hastened the overall timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops.
With impeachment and de-funding the war not in the legislative
horizon, Democrats will move to placate their base by investigating
President Bush’s conduct of the war and ramping up their rhetoric
after the president announces his new strategy for Iraq next week,
which is expected to include a call for sending more troops.
But Sen. Joe Biden, the new chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee, who’s planning as many as a dozen hearings on Iraq, has
been quick to manage expectations.
“We should not exaggerate the ability of the United States
Foreign Relations Committee or the Congress to get a president to
act in a manner in which the Congress thinks is more rational or
more appropriate,” Biden said late last month, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“There’s nothing the United States Congress can do by a piece of
legislation to alter the conduct of a war that a president decides
to pursue.”
By holding hearings, Democrats will show that they’re doing
something to oppose President Bush’s war policy, and make
the argument that the only way they can really end the war is to
take back the White House in 2008. The big question is whether
their restive base will remain patient until then.
Philip Klein is a reporter for The American
Spectator.
