This is What Cusack Is Talking About

Lloyd Dobler (aka John Cusack) from Say Anything...: Okay, how ya doing? I'm Lloyd, and we're gonna watch the movie "Cocoon." I've never actually seen it, but I heard its very good, it makes you happy. Its about a group of people who go to outer space... hope I didnt give anything away there. And now... "Cocoon!"

In my previous post about John Cusack's gratifyingly rantful post over at the HuffPo, I noted his main point:

If the Democrats don't step up and fill this vacuum, the Republicans will.

And it seems it's starting. Here are the three main points in Harry Reid's amendment plan for dealing with Iraq:

First, 2006 should be a significant year of transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with Iraqis taking more and more responsibility for their own security. It’s time to take the training wheels off the Iraqi government. Iraqis must begin to run their own country. In 2006, the US and our allies must do everything we can to make that possible.

Second, the Administration must advise the Iraqi people that U.S. military forces will not stay indefinitely in Iraq, and that it is their responsibility to achieve the broad-based and sustainable political environment essential for defeating the insurgency.

Third, the President needs to submit – on a quarterly basis - a plan for success to Congress and the American people. This plan must specify the challenges and progress being made in Iraq, timetables for achieving our goals and estimated dates for redeployment from Iraq as these goals are met.

Luckily, it seems that the Republicans (who, by the way, are the party that's in power, if you've forgotten) agree with these ideas. My worry is the Republicans will be trying to take owndership of this proposal due to a forgetful media. Here's a report from the NYTimes about the Republican acceptance of these proposals. Here's the lede:

In a sign of increasing unease among Congressional Republicans over the war in Iraq, the Senate is to consider on Tuesday a Republican proposal that calls for Iraqi forces to take the lead next year in securing the nation and for the Bush administration to lay out its strategy for ending the war.

And a little further on, here's some more explanation

The proposal on the Iraq war, from Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, and Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, would require the administration to provide extensive new quarterly reports to Congress on subjects like progress in bringing in other countries to help stabilize Iraq. The other appeals related to Iraq are nonbinding and express the position of the Senate.

The plan stops short of a competing Democratic proposal that moves toward establishing dates for a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq. But it is built upon the Democratic approach and makes it clear that senators of both parties are increasingly eager for Iraqis to take control of their country in coming months and open the door to removing American troops.
[...]
Mr. Frist said an important reason for the Republican proposal was to offer an alternative to the Democratic call for a withdrawal timetable. "The real objective was to get out of this timeline of cutting and running that the Democrats have in their amendment," he said.

Mr. Warner said he decided to take the Democratic proposal and edit it to his satisfaction in an effort to find common ground between the parties on the issue.

OK, so the GOP proposal doesn't include timetables. But it's essentially the same as Reid's proposal. The trick in the coming months will be to remind folks where these kinds of ideas originated and make it stick. (And to avoid any appearance that this is a wholly original thought of my own, I'm just piling on to what was originally pointed out by Nitpicker and linked to by Daily Kos; though the Cusack connection is all my own.)