Harry Reid Pulls an All-Nighter

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid just came up with a new benchmark for his own government: Pull an all-nighter. That's right -- talk for 24 hours about pulling out of Iraq.

Impressive, isn't it?

Reid is not very subtle about his motivations: "I think the American people deserve what we're doing and that is focusing attention every minute of the day on what is wrong with Iraq," he told reporters.

I suspect that the serious Dems understand that pulling out of Iraq will be a disaster, and they want to make sure someone else -- preferably Bush and the GOP -- pays the political price for the policies they promote.

Don't get me wrong: I understand why Americans are weary of the Iraq war. I even share their ambivalence. The images out of Iraq are one endless, meaningless parade of violence that appears to have no beginning and no end, and it's hard to tell whom to trust (certainly neither side in Washington). "Stay the course." For how long? And what for?

The answers are -- five years into the war -- still too murky for too many. The debate that really matters to most Americans is more practical: How are we protecting ourselves by staying in Iraq? But the answer coming out of Washington sounds like a cliché: "chaos in the region." There is a lot of chaos in a lot of regions, so it's best to stay away from places like that, right?

The greater part of the majority of Americans who now oppose the Iraq war do so on the practical grounds of protecting U.S. interests. I understand them. The people I don't understand, and increasingly can't stand, are the anti-war moralists. They are not weary, they are angry. They are not demoralized, they are energized. They are not disillusioned, they are full of a righteous sense of their own superior morality, combined with a shocking indifference to what will happen to millions of people if they succeed in their quest to force defeat in Iraq. It's not a pretty combination.

A few weeks ago, career diplomat Ambassador Ryan Crocker gave an interview in which he gave a very grim analysis of what pulling out of Iraq might mean for the people there, as well as our interests in the region:

"In the States, it's like we're in the last half of the third reel of a three-reel movie, and all we have to do is decide we're done here, and the credits come up, and the lights come on, and we leave the theater and go on to something else," he said. "Whereas out here, you're just getting into the first reel of five reels," he added. "And as ugly as the first reel has been, the other four and a half are going to be way, way worse."

One of the DailyKos bloggers was outraged: "Whatever occurs from this war, from which we must soon be disengaged, is on (the Bush administration's) heads. It is their disaster, the reward for their dark deeds ... If it is true that the future will be 'way, way worse,' as Crocker opines, then they have brought this on themselves and Iraqis especially ..."

Of course that's only the blogosphere, but on July 12, a reporter asked Harry Reid point-blank the question that cuts through the pretensions to humanitarianism: "Do you think the Iraqi people will be safer with U.S. troops out?"

Reid dodged: "It is clear that there is now a state of chaos in Iraq. And it is up to the Iraqi people to make themselves safe. We can't do it. It's time the training wheels come off and they take care of their own country."

There's something very ugly about people who feel so morally good about themselves for failing to take any responsibility for what they advocate, especially when the price is likely to be paid in other people's blood.