The Democrats are planning something other than cook-outs for the Fourth of July. From Politico:

Democrats plan a July 4th ad campaign to punish House Republicans who voted against the $100-plus billion Iraq and Afghanistan war supplemental - emulating GOP attacks against John Kerry and other Dems who voted against Bush war bills.

A series of 60-second radio ads will run during drive time from July 1 through July 8, according to a script provided to POLITICO -- and they have the support-our-troops ring of GOP spots.

They'll target seven Republicans seen as vulnerable in '10, including Reps. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), Charlie Dent (R-Penn.), Jim Gerlach (R-Penn.), Dan Lungren (R-Calif.), Mike McCaul (R-TX), Lee Terry (R-Neb.) and Joe Wilson (R-SC).

This will be an interesting test case, for one important political question these days is, does anyone give a damn about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

At the presidential news conference earlier this week, not a single reporter asked President Barack Obama about either war. This week there's been a series of deadly bombings in Iraq, killing about 200 people--as US forces prepare to withdraw from Iraqi cities. This horrific violence has received little media attention in the United States. And when was the last time you saw a full report on the war in Afghanistan on television? There's an important presidential campaign under way in Afghanistan. Its outcome could have a big impact on the US war effort there. Yet, it registers barely a blip on the US media landscape. (At Mother Jones, we post a daily "We're Still at War Photo of the Day.")

So can Democrats score points by whacking Republicans in Rove-ian fashion for "not supporting the troops"? Unfortunately, I don't have much time to ponder this; a report on Michael Jackson's autopsy is coming up after the next commercial.

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The below item was posted shortly before the House voted against the $700 billion Big Finance bailout 228 to 225. Ninety-five Democrats joined 133 Republicans to bring down the bill. And Representative Brad Sherman was one of those Democrats.....

For my money, the $700 billion bailout plan is being rushed through Congress with too much haste. There's been little debate of the plan's basics and not much consideration of alternative approaches to the administration's preferred choice: buying up the bad paper of Big Finance firms that screwed up royally. Yet few in Washington--including John McCain and Barack Obama--want to go out on a limb. Any politician who stands up to Wall Street and opposes this thing has to fear being blamed should the plan not go through and the financial meltdown worsen. In politics, there's safety in numbers. So if everyone jumps aboard and this plan doesn't work out, nobody stands to lose politically. It's the safe political play: get on the train with everyone else.

But there are some legislators who are saying, slow down. House Republicans tried to put on the brakes last week. But their alternative--cut taxes--was a non sequitur. On the Democratic side, Representative Brad Sherman has pulled together a Skeptics Caucus. He drew 30 or so House Democrats to meetings on the weekend. Not enough to block the Paulson Express. But not an insignificant number. And Sherman released a memo detailing his objections to the bailout.

Since there's not much media coverage of the Slow-Down crowd, allow me--as a public service--to post the full document right here, The taxpayers need more, not less, of a debate, before allowing the Bush Administration to start a $700 billion spree.

From Rep. Sherman:

On Monday, I noted that when General David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, testified before Congress last September he wielded a chart entitled "Iraqi Security Forces Capabilities." That graphic aid hardly backed up the argument that the Iraqi forces were on the march. It showed that the level of Iraqi troops that were fully independent or that could stage operations of their own with the support of U.S. forces had dipped slightly between September 2006 and September 2007. That indicated that over the course of a year, according to Petraeus' own numbers, there had been no progress--none--in fielding Iraqi security forces that could function on their own. That seemed a rather strong indicator.

So on Tuesday morning, as I watched Petraeus' testimony before the Senate armed services committee, I waited to get his handouts to see what had happened on this front in the past seven months. As soon as he began testifying, the committee made his charts available. And--whaddayaknow?--this time he had no version of this chart. There was one chart indicating that more Iraqi battalions were now taking the lead in military operations than in January 2007. But this point was challenged by Senator Carl Levin, the committee chairman. Levin said that he was recently informed that of 110 joint U.S.-Iraqi operations of company size or greater in Iraq in the first three months of 2008, Iraqi forces assumed the lead in only ten of these missions. Still, Petraeus testified that the Iraqi forces have "grown significantly" since September, but he did not provide information on their capabilities that would allow an observer to compare current numbers to those he presented to Congress in September. Anyone care to guess why?

During his testimony, Petraeus said what was expected: the so-called surge is working, progress is real if fragile. And he said that there should be no reduction of troops beyond a return to the pre-surge levels. At the same time, the Democratic war critics on the committee missed a chance to present a cohesive and extensive challenge to Bush's war. I suss it all out here.

Yesterday, I wondered aloud whether the members of the House and the Senate will give General David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, much of a grilling when he testifies on Capitol Hill next week. After all, during his previous appearance in September, Petraeus was met only with a fusillade of softballs.

I asked a senior Democratic House aide if the questioning this time will be more vigorous. He responds: "Absolutely. The recent events seem to have confirmed everyone's suspicions about the “success” of the surge. Combined with the recent statements about retaining 140,000 troops, the McCain 100 year commitment, and the salience of the “cost of war” theme of the last few weeks, and the 4,000 death figure being reached, Members are ready to challenge assertions or predictions of success."

Such challenging is long past due. One question is, will it matter? The Democrats in the Senate and House have been completely stymied by George W. Bush. They have tried many times to force Bush to change direction in Iraq. He has said no. And they have declined to go nuclear: that is, vote against general funding for the war. The Democrats don't have the votes to win that battle. And many of them do not want to be placed in a position where Republicans and conservatives can accuse them of being responsible for what could be a nasty ending to the war. Their strategic aim has been to force Bush to clean up his own mess. He has refused.

So it's unlikely that any tough questioning of Petraeus will lead to policy change. But this remains an important moment. For the past year, there's not been much popular and media attention paid to the war. In recent months, it's barely been in the news. Occasionally, you see video of the aftermath of a market bomb-blast, but the war is usually off the screen.

The public certainly does not support the war. But what's the nature of this opposition? Last night, I attended a screening of Body of War, a gripping documentary directed by Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue (yes, that Phil Donahue) that follows the story and travails of Tomas Young, an Iraq war vet who was shot while on patrol and paralyzed from the waist down. After the film was shown, Young spoke to the audience and noted that even though close to 70 percent of the American public say they oppose this war, this only means that these Americans are willing to pick up a phone and tell some pollster on the other end that they don't fancy this war. That's not passionate opposition. Are they willing to take any action to stop it? Not really. Public sentiment regarding the war is closer to alienation than anger. After all, the costs of the war are hidden (that is, not felt) by most Americans,

The upcoming Petraeus testimony is an opportunity. The national media, for at least a day or so, will focus on the war. The dominant media narrative of the war in recent months has been that the surge is working. Now war critics and skeptics in Congress will have a brief chance to rewrite (or at least challenge) that script. But that will only happen if they are forceful in questioning Petraeus. Too much deference will lose the day for them. And the point is...to make a point: the war is not going as well as Bush claims. Doing so will help the Democratic presidential candidate--whoever wins--do battle with John McCain, a cheerleader for the war, and also help the Democratic nominee, if he or she is elected, to begin disengagement from Iraq.

It may be weeks or months before the American public (and the media) next pays any intense attention to the war. The Democrats ought to make sure they don't blow this engagement.

The Democrats in Congress have been rolled on the Iraq war. That's no news flash. Given that they long ago decided not to pull the trigger and defund the war, they were left with the option of trying to force George W. Bush to change course. He stood firm. They blinked. And when General David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, testified before Congress last September, the Democrats greeted him with softball questions. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama wimped out when they had a chance to grill Petraeus. Bottom-line: Bush won political space for the war, and the meme was established that the surge was working and the war was going better. That narrative, though, had a hole in it, for a successful surge (if that is what it was) was not equivalent to a successful war. Sure, pouring 30,000 extra troops into the hotspots of Iraq would certainly cause some of the violence to decline. But that did not mean that the roots of the conflict(s) in Iraq were being addressed--let alone addressed effectively. Yet Petraeus, generally unchallenged by the Dems (who were scared to be associated with MoveOn's anti-Petraeus campaign), was able to sell the surge.

Now that sales job is wearing thin. The recent fighting between the Iraqi government and the militia of Moqtadar al-Sadr suggests that the problem in Iraq is civil war rather than insurgency. Or, at least, maybe both. Here we have the government trying to crack down on what is, as journalist Patrick Cockburn calls it, "the only mass movement in Iraqi politics." Say what you want about Sadr, he ain't no insurgent. What's our dog in this fight? What does any of this have to do with combating al Qaeda (which seems to be a small slice of the challenge in Iraq, Bush's pronouncements to the contrary)? Why back the inept and corrupt regime of Nouri al-Maliki?

The surge was supposed to create space for national reconciliation. But even Petraeus has recognized that this opportunity has been squandered. And if one Shi'ite bloc (the government) is fighting another Shi'ite bloc (Sadr and his followers), what does that tell us about progress on this front? Meanwhile, top U.S. military officials told Congress on Tuesday that the surge in Iraq and deployments in Afghanistan have stressed out the military so much that it may not be able to handle other conflicts. This assessment comes just as Petraeus is expected to tell Congress next week--when he comes back for a return engagement--that he wants to delay any de-surging.

So it's a mess. The surge may not be the temporary move Bush had promised when he announced it in January 2007. The violence is increasing. Four million Iraqis remain dislocated and displaced. The Sunnis have been armed to beat back al Qaeda in Iraq--but those arms can be put to other use. And civil war between the Shi'ites is but a flashpoint away--and only prevented recently due to the intervention of Iran, which helped cool down the clash between the government and Sadr and which seems to have more influence in Iraq than the United States.

Will members of Congress--Democratic and Republican--grill Petraeus about all this? Or let themselves once again be dazzled by charts, graphs, and confident assertions of progress. This is a good time for a surge in oversight. And if the Democrats need any help, I've prepared a list of questions that national security experts would like to see posed to Petraeus. (See it here.) But I am sure they can come up with their own queries. One only needs to read the papers and to wonder, what the hell is going on?

"In a setback for the Democrats...." "In a setback for the Democrats...." "In a setback for the Democrats...." Seems every time you turn on the telly or pick up a paper--or even read on the Internet--these words dominate coverage of the goings-on in Washington. The Dems try to tax Big Oil to pay for alternative energy programs. They lose. The Dems try to tax gazillionaire hedge funds hotshots so upper middle-class taxpayers don't get nailed by the Alternative Minimum Tax. They lose. The Dems try to expand the children's health insurance program. They lose. And of course, the Dems try to attach timetables and limits to the new funding for the war in Iraq. They lose. Given that most of these positions are supported by most Americans, one might wonder why the Democrats keep failing. But George W. Bush keeps outmaneuvering Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. It's looking like the Ds are the Putz Party.

Yeah, I know the Democratic argument: we face those obstructionist, filibuster-waving GOPers who march in lockstep with Mr. Obstinate in the White House and, still, we've raised the minimum wage, passed the 9/11 commission recommendations, boosted fuel efficiency standards for vehicles, and reprogrammed billions that Bush wanted toward our budget priorities. But there is the matter of the war.

Once again, the headline in this morning's papers: Senate Approves Iraq War Funds. On the No. 1 issue of this Congress, the Democrats have utterly failed. They triumphantly came into office pledging to end the war, and they have not even managed to slow it down. The Democratic base is right to be peeved. And the Dems cannot blame the media for noting this continuing failure. On this point--the key point--they look hapless and impotent. Sure, there are structural impediments, such as that Senate filibuster and the presidential veto. But the Democrats have not figured out how to lose successfully. If you don't have the votes, you don't have the votes. Math is math. But there are ways to frame debates so that you win (somewhat) by losing. And on Iraq--and the other matters listed above--the Ds haven't done that.

Perhaps it's easier said than done. The Monday morning quarterback always has 20-20 vision. But the Democrats missed a chance early on to have a simple up-and-down vote on war funding that would have established that Bush and the Republicans (with a few Democrats) were keeping the war alive despite the Democrats' best efforts. Which would mean that the Democrats needed more Democrats in Congress. But the various pirouettes and legislative mechanisms the Democrats have tried have been confusing and, worse, ineffective. And their messaging has been inconsistent: we're standing firm....oh, no, we're not....now this time we really will....well, we don't have the votes...and so on.

Fair or not, the Democrats cannot hide their war failure behind press releases touting their successes on other fronts. A House Democratic chief of staff explains: "It's like you call in a contractor to fix your roof, he doesn't do it, but he tells you, 'now you're sink is working fine.' Okay, but you wanted to him to fix the roof and he promised to fix the roof and he didn't." The roof is the Iraq war.

Being in the majority can be rough. There are expectations and obligations. In 1994, after the Democrats lost Congress, Representative Barney Frank told me he was looking forward to being in the minority: "It's more fun." Would Pelosi and Reid agree now? In any event, after Congress clears out of town, these leaders and the rest of the Dems ought to start thinking how to have a better year in 2008. You think they know there are elections next November?

After the CNN/YouTube Republican debate last week, fellow CQ blogger Richard Whalen observed:

The verdict: a very disappointing “debate.” After the worst-ever week for the greenback in the past half century, not one of the presidential candidates had anything to say about the economy, the dollar, the falling real estate market, the erratic stock market – zip.

These rich and powerful men are not concerned about how Americans are just getting by from pay day to pay day. Why aren't these candidates addressing the economic issues that are troubling most Americans and better yet, offering concrete solutions? Even a Thompson who flashes down-home folksiness had nothing to say about jobs, security and the future of the economy.

There were other matters not addressed during that debate. Iran, for instance--and global warming. (No YouTubers asked Thompson why a few months ago he delivered a radio commentary mocking people who worry about global warming.) But Whalen's posting prompted me to go back and look at the Democratic debate, held in Las Vegas on November 15. A search of the word "job" produced ten times the candidates used the J-word:

* Joseph Biden: "The American people don't give a darn about any of this stuff that's going on up here....They're worrying about whether they're going to keep their job."

* Christopher Dodd: "We Democrats have a job to do, and that is to unite this party, attract independents, Republicans who are seeking change....The American people want results, they want the job done, exactly what Joe Biden talked about here. But people get up in the morning and go to work, they sit around and they worry about their jobs, their retirement, their health care, this kids' education, and they wonder if anybody in Washington is paying any attention to them and whether or not the job is being done on their behalf.

* Bill Richardson: "Are we creating jobs and economic growth?

* Dodd: "I believe part of our job is to discourage those who want to come here [illegally]."

* Dennis Kucinich: "So I'm the candidate of workers in this -- this campaign because I've stood for jobs for all, full employment economy."

* Hillary Clinton: "you need to weed out the teachers who are not doing a good job."

* Richardson: "[Musharraf] is supposed to go after terrorists on his border. And he has done a very weak job of doing that."

* Barack Obama: "[American troops in Iraq] are doing a magnificent job."

* John Edwards: "NAFTA...has cost us millions of jobs.

* Richardson: "The federal government wasn't doing its job in stopping the flow of drugs and people....We should speak frankly to our friends [in Mexico], and it should be something like this: Mexico, give jobs to your people.

Note that none of these references were a pledge to improve the jobs situation in the United States or a proposal to do so. Sure, conventional unemployment numbers are low. But plenty of Americans are--to use a technical term--wigged out by the prospect of economic insecurity. In today's globalized economy, practically anyone can lose his or her job tomorrow and have a tough time finding a new one with good pay and benefits. Once upon a time, many Americans--even those with only a high school education--could look forward to sticking with the same decent-paying job for decades. No more. And add the accelerating costs of health care and education to the picture, plus the iffiness of many retirement plans, and you get a mood of unease and worry. (And I'm not including in this mix the fear of dirty bombs being detonated in malls during the Christmas rush.)

None of the leading candidates are speaking much about this declining (or lost) economic security. The Dems uttered the word "security" when discussing border matters and foreign policy (and, of course, Social Security). But they have not raised the wider issue of economic security as a main subject. (Edwards has come close in his populist attacks on corporate power in Washington, but just close.) And the Republicans are not even within a country mile of the issue. They're too preoccupied with providing tax "relief" to millionaires.

Jobs--this used to be bread and butter for Democratic candidates. Not that it always worked. Remember Michael "Good Jobs at Good Wages" Dukakis? But the last Democratic candidate to win the White House--Bill Clinton (a.k.a. Mr. Feel Your Pain)--did so by addressing the economic anxieties produced by the recession of the early 1990s.

The international economic tidal forces that are battering American workers are not easy to alter. Even though Democratic candidates do have position papers outlining how they would straighten the middle class and create some jobs, they are skimming the surface. None have yet connected with the deep-seated anxieties of today--and connecting with the voters is their No. 1 job.

LET THE GOOD TIMES...COME BACK. This weekend I attended a fundraiser held by the Future of Music Coalition, a nonprofit outfit focusing on music and technology issues, and Sweet Home New Orleans, a nonprofit organization that supports New Orleans musicians who lost homes during Hurricane Katrina. Part of the proceeds from the evening are going to help Al "Carnival Time" Johnson, a New Orleans musical icon for four decades. His home of 40 years was destroyed during the flood when a barge landed on it. He lost just about everything he owned. At the fundraiser, Johnson played some old-time New Orleans R&B, and Mike Mills of R.E.M. did a short set of his own. If you'd like to help musicians like Johnson, please check out Sweet Home New Orleans.