Lefties Abandoning Pelosi & Co.

Thomas Sowell's latest at Townhall.com talks about what happens when demagogues become elected officials--people take them at their word and feel betrayed when words don't become actions.

One of the dangers in being a demagogue is that some of your own supporters -- those who take you literally -- can turn against you when you start letting your actions be influenced by realities, instead of following the logic of your ringing rhetoric.

That is what seems to be happening to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other liberal Democrats in Congress.

Anti-war protesters in Washington and outside her home in San Francisco are denouncing Pelosi and other Congressional Democrats for not cutting off the money to fight the war in Iraq.

If the war in Iraq is such an unnecessary and futile expenditure of blood and treasure as Pelosi et al. have been saying, why not put an end to it?

But to do that would mean taking responsibility for the consequences -- and those consequences would be disastrous and lasting. They would probably still be lasting when the 2008 elections come around.

The Democrats cannot risk that. They have taken over Congress by a very clever and very disciplined strategy of constantly criticizing the Republicans, without taking the risk of presenting an alternative for whose results they can be held responsible.

There is no sign that they want to change that politically winning strategy now. Their non-binding resolutions against the war are a perfect expression of that strategy.

These resolutions put them on record as being against the war without taking the responsibility for ending it.

Unfortunately for the Congressional Democrats, their left-wing supporters have taken the anti-war rhetoric of Pelosi, Murtha, et al., at face value and consider it a betrayal that they talk the talk but will not walk the walk.

One could say that the true believers of the anti-war crowd don't understand the political reality of defunding the war, but I think they do and thus choose to ignore practical consequences of abandoning Iraq.

But Pelosi & Co. are having a much more difficult go of the matter. Pelosi is experiencing two contradictory pressures and impatience on the Democrats Iraq stance. One the left is teh out of Iraq crowd who are mad that Pelosi lacks the backbone to exercise the Congressional power of the purse. Leaving aside teh issue that Pelosi doesn't have the votes to pass such a measure, this faction is at least being honest about their goal and about their chosen method.

On Pelosi's right is teh group of Members representing conservative districts who think we should be staying in Iraq, but with tighter oversight of what is going on. Other than that, they believe the President is the Commander in Chief and should be permitted to set strategy.

Pelosi & Co. cannot reconcile these stances along with the failed understanding of why she is in power in the first place. Pelosi is learning that the problem with winning an election is that now people expect you to keep your promises. Don't be surprised if the liberal vote totals fall in 2008 as disillusionment with all talk, no action grows.