Incrementalism Is Often the Only Way

The NDP has single handedly propped up the Harper government by voting against the Liberals' Afghanistan withdrawal bill. Layton says that he has another date in mind that would get the troops even sooner. He's awfully ballsy to think that he can get this passed before 2009. Ballsy or stupid.

It would have been much safer for Layton to take an incrementalist approach to vote in favour of the 2009 withdrawal and then pushed for an earlier withdrawal date. In fact, this seems pretty obvious. Maybe there's something I'm missing, but to put who knows how many more Canadian lives at stake to gamble on getting a sooner withdrawal date is careless and irresponsible.

Why Didn't They Think of This Before Hand?

The Democrats should have seen it as obvious that Bush would veto their war funding bill if it contained any kind of stipulation requiring the troops to come home any time soon, but it seems like it's just now that they're getting together to come up with some kind of strategy that would allow them to show that they are taking a stand against the war (which is what they were elected to do) without denying the troops of funds.

So what are they gonna do? I don't think they have the balls to send another bill to Bush that would require a pull-out, but they can't just say, "ok, here's the money" with no strings attached. Are they gonna pass another useless non-binding resolution? The Democrats have never struck me as a particularly imaginative or creative bunch, so I can't wait to see how they'll deal with this.