Don't be a Partisan Dick

Here's an interesting interview with Senator John Kerry about Libya (go to about the 7:30 mark) and the War Powers Act. Let's set aside the stupidity of Kerry and Dean's statements, about how the WPA only applies when there are troops on the ground, and/or 50k men are dead and/or when a certain definition of "introducing into" is met. (Like Kerry would have gone along with not authorizing Iraq beecause initial projections made it seem brief and non-costly. Please.)

Instead, I'd just want to focus on the cost partisn loyalty has on our national discussion as exemplified in that clip. On this issue, the Republicans are being partisan or "playing politics", as Kerry astutely observes, and... they are also totally correct. Moreover, they are bringing up an important issue that should (must) be debated by the Congress: The United states is using force in a foreign country and causing the deaths of people, including women and children and this has been going on for 3 months. Our directly elected representatives need to weigh in, regardless of whether a statute and the Constitution require their authorization.

So really, Kerry's position amounts to essentially opposing democracy, and not for any legitimate reasons. (Indeed Kerry seems to place the burden on those opposing foreign interventions with having to prove their costly and violent enough to even be debated by our Congress.) But relies mainly on the fact that the Republicans are just acting all partisan and shit, and then Howard Dean (who made his name critizing the War in Iraq and apparently loves irony) says something stupid like "you don't play politics with American troops." And all that crap sorta flies as an actual argument.

So there you have it. When you (in this case the Republicans) come down in favor of debate, representation and democracy when it comes to major issues of life and death, your naked partisanship will be your undoing, and provide the best ammunition for your opponents, who otherwise couldn't formulate real arguments. This is the cost of being a blatantly partisan douche bag and doing things like supported shit you don't like because you like the politician doing it. You fuck up democracy. Way to go!