First, Do No Harm(an)

by digby

To the few of you who don’t know, Dday has moved over to FDL and is posting on a new blog called News Desk. And he’s writing up a storm.

Today, he’s written a great piece about one of our local congressional Reps, Jane Harmon, who sent a very interesting signal yesterday:

Traditionally hawkish Congresswoman Jane Harman surprised many at a Brookings Institution event yesterday by coming out against escalation in Afghanistan.

Harman, a longtime Intelligence Committee member, told a Brookings Institution gathering today that any further increases “wouldn’t be well received” on Capitol Hill. Harman’s view is that the Obama administration should deal with government corruption, and build up Afghan forces, before Congress is asked to pay for more U.S. troops. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U,S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has asked for 40,000 additional troops. Harman also blasted the administration, as well as international nongovernmental groups, for not doing more to prevent the fraud that marred the Aug. 20 presidential election in Afghanistan. “I would call it a total fiasco,” she said.

Some commentators have suggested that this displays a newfound skepticism on Capitol Hill for the Afghanistan mission. That may be, but the shift here is more likely rooted in local politics.

Dday goes on to discuss the primary challenge against Jane Harman from Marcy Winograd, who got a pretty substantial 38% when she ran against Harman in 2006. Winograd is a true blue liberal and her candidacy obviously has Harman running scared.

But I don’t think it’s only the primary challenge that precipitated Harman’s comments. I do think there is also a pervasive feeling on the Hill that this McCrystal escalation is politically radioactive. And for good reason. The war, after all, has been going on for 8 years already and nobody knows how much it’s going to cost in terms of blood and treasure. Most of all, nobody knows what “victory” would look like or how any of this actually pertains to American national security anymore.

More prosaically, the country isn’t behind it and these Democrats have to face their constituents next year and explain to them why we should spend many more billions on this quagmire when we are simultaneously being told that we can’t expand the deficit by further helping Americans in this moribund economy. It’s going to be a very hard sell and not just for those like Harman who have a primary opponent.

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