This is what passes for "debate" these days

Last Thursday and Friday, the House of Representatives held a hideous mockery of a debate about the war in Iraq. Patrick Martin's description, including his reporting of the illegal taxpayer-funded "Debate Prep Book" issued by the Pentagon/NSC, is spot-on:

While there were the trappings of debate, with speakers alternating for and against, the procedure was a travesty. The House Republican leadership presented a resolution declaring the Iraq war to be an integral part of a global “war on terror” and condemning any effort to set a withdrawal timetable as a surrender to terrorism. No amendments were permitted, nor were the Democrats allowed to present an alternative resolution for a vote.
The language of the resolution, HR 961, parroting White House propaganda, declared the war in Iraq to be “essential to the security of the American people,” branded as terrorists all Iraqis fighting against the US occupation, hailed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and congratulated the newly installed stooge regime of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
After rejecting any deadline for withdrawal, the resolution declared, “the United States is committed to the completion of the mission” in Iraq, and “the United States will prevail in the Global War on Terror, the noble struggle to protect freedom from the terrorist adversary.”
...
It is one of the longstanding myths of official American politics that “support” for the troops means endorsing policies that lead to their deaths, while those who urge that US soldiers be moved out of harm’s way are slandered as being “against” the troops. If this patriotic baloney were stripped away, the debate would have seen Republicans demanding thousands, even tens of thousands more American deaths in Iraq, with the Democrats arguing that Moloch could perhaps be satisfied with slightly less blood—or more likely, that the blood should be shed elsewhere, perhaps in Iran or North Korea.
...
One particularly ominous aspect of the House debate was the distribution of a 74-page Iraq Floor Debate Prep Book to several members of Congress. This document was issued by the Pentagon in an unprecedented effort by the military to intervene in a debate within the legislature. After several Democratic congressmen were e-mailed the document, the Pentagon tried to recall it.
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After one senator complained that the publication of the document violated a legal ban on using government funds for lobbying Congress, the Pentagon revealed that the document had actually been drafted in the Bush White House, by the National Security Council.

It's too bad the Democrats have no coherent opposition strategy. It's too bad they are beholden to the same material interests and ideological prejudices as the Republicans.

IN OTHER NEWS...
Jerry Tucker has a great piece at the Monthly Review Zine concerning "liberal orthodoxy" and the way in which mainstream liberals have given up on the working class, exemplified by George McGovern gently lecturing workers that they need to be satisfied with less.