There’s been a surge of email re my post last night on Dems and the surge. Here’s a very polite one which states the basic objection:

Subject: With respect, you still missed Drum’s (and others) point It’s a simple one: That many Dems favored an increase in troops at a time when they thought the war could be won–literally years ago now, as we are in 2007–doesn’t mean that they have any intellectual or moral obligation to support one now that they think such a plan would be throwing good money after bad. Dialysis for a patient may have been a good idea several years ago, but it’s too late if you believe her death to be imminent, and no one will accuse you of being an opportunist if you thought she should have had it years earlier when she had a chance to cure her kidney disease. That’s the Dems position today: It’s over, we can’t change the results, now is therefore the time to think about mitigating that result, not pretending we can turn it into something else. As Yglesias pointed out, those Dems who have recently supported troop increases have been reigned in, for better or worse, by Party discipline–something the GOP practiced with great success for years, and a reason for the change in their position is entirely different from supporting such increases in, say, 2005, and believing today that such a move will only cause more American casualties, cost more money, and further drag our nation into a sectarian conflict we can no[t] effect. Times have changed, positions change with them.

Me: I really don’t think I’m missing the point at all. If you look, I wrote last night “There may be good answers for why they’ve [The Democrats] changed positions. I can imagine several possible ones.”

I am sure there are Democrats and Republicans who are opposed to the surge as too little, too late. I know many of them. And, even folks like Rich and myself and most of the others around here have more than once expressed a real concern that that might be the case. But the premise of this emailer as well as many others is that the Democrats — or at least the ones I’m talking about — have acted in good faith all along. I’m sorry, but I don’t buy it. And that’s why I used the phrase “for it before they were against it.” It suggests that many Democrats have been Kerry-like in their opportunistic approach to the war. That was the point of my column, it’s the point of Rich’s column and it’s the point of JPod’s post below re Hillary. Kevin Drum may honestly believe that Pelosi’s positions on the war have always been the products of sober-minded analysis of national security concerns. I don’t. Some have been serious and thoughtful critics like Joe Biden (at least until he started running for President in earnest) or Jim Webb. But the responsible Democratic voices rarely carry the day.