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Historian Rick Perlstein has a fascinating piece today over at Salon about what the congress can do to reign in the president's plan for more war.

For those of you too lazy to read the entire thing, here is the conclusion. But if you're looking for one place to spend a good 5 minutes today learning about how your nation's past is directly informing its present, there is no better place to go than this article.

The conclusion:

Every time congressional war critics made Congress the bulwark of opposition to a war-mongering president, they galvanized public opinion against the war. The same thing seems to be happening now. Already, the guardians of respectable opinion are sneering less; there are simply too many anti-surge bills on the table for that. The shame would be if today's only credible antiwar party, the Democrats, squander that opportunity by failing to harness their majority, not merely for a strong showing against escalation but in favor of a position to credibly end the war.

You know that whatever the facts, the right will blame "liberals" and "Democrats" for losing Iraq; that's as inevitable as the fact that we've already lost Iraq -- and as inevitable as an arrogant president playing into Democratic hands by expanding the engagement (he already is). What would be inexcusable is if wobbly Democrats managed to maneuver themselves timidly into a corner that made them only the right-wing's scapegoats -- and not the champions that truly made their stand to end the war.

In 2008, the Republicans are going to have to run either amidst an electorate convinced that Republicans will be staying the course or amidst an electorate they've managed to bamboozle into believing "peace is at hand." If they manage the latter, they'll have a good chance of winning the election. But the only way they can do that is if Democrats can't claim credit for ending it first. I hope to be able to watch the Democrats truly try to end the war; it will be glorious. Because even if they start losing votes in Congress, the president and the party that enables him can only become politically weaker by the day.

For those of you wondering which direction the Democrats will choose, I offer you Sen Jim Webb's SOTU rebuttal from last night:

Here's one example of the response his speech has generated. From Newsweek's Jonathan Alter:

Something unprecedented happened tonight, beyond the doorkeeper announcing, "Madame Speaker." For the first time ever, the response to the State of the Union Message overshadowed the president's big speech. Virginia Sen. James Webb, in office only three weeks, managed to convey a muscular liberalism—with personal touches—that left President Bush's ordinary address in the dust. In the past, the Democratic response has been anemic—remember Washington Gov. Gary Locke? This time it pointed the way to a revival for national Democrats.

Webb is seen as a moderate or even conservative Democrat, but this was a populist speech that quoted Andrew Jackson, founder of the Democratic Party and champion of the common man. The speech represented a return to the tough-minded liberalism of Scoop Jackson and Hubert Humphrey, but by quoting Republicans Teddy Roosevelt (on "improper corporate influence") and Dwight D. Eisenhower (on ending the Korean War), he reinforced the argument that President Bush had taken the GOP away from its roots.

Webb was given a speech to read by the Democratic leadership. He threw it out and wrote his own. As a well-regarded novelist, Webb has a sense of narrative and human drama. He apparently felt that the boots his son wore in Iraq, which he used to great effect during his successful Senate campaign against Sen. George Allen, might be a bit hokey. So instead, he showed a picture of his father during the Berlin airlift. He then went on to describe taking the picture to bed every night and his family's long record of military service.

As a highly decorated veteran of Vietnam and the Reagan administration (where he served as Navy secretary), Webb is the perfect instrument for rescuing Democrats from the image of wimpy, weak-kneed wussies that has so hampered them in recent national elections. The contrast with Bush and Vice President Cheney—both of whom avoided going to Vietnam—could not have been starker. Webb did not have "other priorities" (Cheney) or a cushy billet defending Texas from Mexico (Bush). But unlike fellow veteran John Kerry, he has a military bearing and nonelitist tone that is appealing.

The thing I found most fascinating about Webb's speech was the middle portion. Did you notice how he started rattling off names and ranks of military officers whose advice ont he war had been ignored? That section wasn't aimed at the general public. It was aimed square at the men and women serving in our armed forces. In tone, style, and substance, that section was more military briefing than political speech. Which, if you ask me, was the perfect approach.