Attack dogs and surrender monkeys

As we approach the big political showdown over Iraq war funding the empty rhetoric is heating up. Here's Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:

“The president sends out his attack dog often,” said Mr. Reid. “That’s also known as Dick Cheney.

Mr. Reid again, in the same interview:

“I’m not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating,”

Apparently calling someone an 'attack dog' doesn't represent name-calling in Harry's world. Or maybe it's a term of endearment in Las Vegas?

As bad as it pains me to give him any credit whatsoever he's actually correct about the Bush/Cheney relationship. Bush plays the good cop to Cheney's bad cop, which is not an unusual relationship in the business world. I've worked in several organizations where a similar strategy was used between numbers one and two.

Chances are the Veep couldn't care less about his approval rating since this is the end of his political career. In that setting a 9 percent approval rating might be somewhat liberating, freeing him to say just about anything short of "F-off" in getting the message across. Whether it's working or not is another question.

Speaking of good cop, bad cop, Harry Reid might well be part of such a strategy himself. It's a good bet most Democrats agreed with his "the war is lost" statement and have for a long time. However, since quite a few of the top donkeys believe that a higher office one day awaits them they have to be careful, after all, look what happened to John Cary. That doesn't apply to Dennis Kucinich, or as he was called yesterday, Congressman Truther.

But Reid is under no such restrictions since he's now reached his Peter Principle Level. Fire away.

Of course the idiotic thing about this nonsensical rhetorical merry-go-round is that everyone knows Bush will veto a timetable bill; everyone knows the Dems don't have the numbers to override; and everyone knows there aren't enough 'stop the war' types to actually force a Constitutional crisis and funding scramble with soldiers in harm's way. This isn't like Newt shutting down the government in 1994. So, in a world where sound-bites suffice for substance, here we are.