Standing Up To The Obstructionists (And The Pundits Who Love Them)

Submitted by Bill Scher
The blogosphere is abuzz this morning after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took to task the Washington Post editorial board, in the paper's own pages. (DailyKos, Eschaton, TPMCafe, D-Day, Skewering The Chimp and Slow Roasted have praised Reid's letter to the editor.)
Last week, The Posties accused Reid of being "irresponsible" for "deny[ing] rather than nourish[ing] a bipartisan agreement" on Iraq:
The Senate Democratic leadership spent the past week trying to prove that Congress is deeply divided over Iraq, with Democrats pressing and Republicans resisting a change of course. In fact that's far from the truth. A large majority of senators from both parties favor a shift in the U.S. mission that would involve substantially reducing the number of American forces over the next year or so and rededicating those remaining to training the Iraqi army, protecting Iraq's borders and fighting al-Qaeda. President Bush and his senior aides and generals also support this broad strategy...
Putting aside the laughable claim that Bush wants to fundamentally change course in Iraq, what's also "far from the truth" is that a "large majority" of Republican Senators want the same.
This fiction was concocted earlier in the month by conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks. The Post merely recycled the baseless assertion as fact, without any evidence.
If it actually was true, a majority of Republicans would have voted for the legislation Reid put on the floor, as the bill proposed all the strategic shifts listed above by the Post.
As they say, the Post has a right to its opinion, but not to its own facts.
Reid himself effectively laid out the facts in his letter. Clearly, Reid realizes that pressure can't be easily placed on the obstructionists if the traditional media won't tell the truth about who is obstructing the public will.
So, Reid took matters in his own hands. That was the necessary thing to do.
But what applies to the pundits applies to the obstructionists.
We have to continue taking matters in our own hands, force attention and direct public pressure on those standing in the way of real change. One day of pressure is not enough.