Dems Back Down on Iraq War Timetable

Carolyn Kay at Make Them Accountable says â€œPitiful, Democrats, just plain pitiful.â€ Did political feasibility win ot over principle on the latest war funding agreement?

May 22 â€” Congressional Democrats relented Tuesday on their insistence that a war spending measure set a date for withdrawing American combat troops from Iraq. Instead, they moved toward a deal with President Bush that would impose new conditions on the Iraqi government

.

The decision to back down was a wrenching reversal for leading Democrats, who saw their election triumph in November as a call to force an end to the war. It was the first time since taking power in Congress that the Democrats had publicly agreed to allow a vote on war financing without a timetable for troop withdrawal.

But maybe itâ€™s not that easy. Jerome Armstrong at MyDD that Democrats not to bow to hysterical headlines like these

Bush wins Iraq showdown with Congress
DEMS BOW TO BUSH ON FUNDS FOR WAR
Democrats to fund Iraq war with no pullout date

...the withdrawal language was only included in the Senate bill because of two Republicans Senators, Smith and Hagel, that agreed to vote for the original bill that included withdrawal from Iraq language. I've not seen it reported, but have heard that both told Democratic leadership in the Senate that they would not go forward with further votes. Hagel has made it clear from the beginning that it was "about sending a signal to Bush" and the administration. For Smith, it's all about his threading a re-election campaign in Oregon with high-profile acts of disagreement with Bush.
â€¦Having Iraq is the main issue of debate is a loser for Republicans. This funding will expire, and result in another showdown. Over and over, Bush is going to veto it, and more Republicans in the Senate and House are going to peel off. And if they don't, then we are going to see that getting out of Iraq becomes the dominant issue in 2008.

The war sucks, I'd love for it to be ended tomorrow, but there's no sense in adopting the press frame of a hyperbolic defeatism aimed at the Democrats in the Senate for not having the votes from Republicans to end the war.

Submitted by Morra Aarons Mele (view blog

) on Wed, 05/23/2007 - 08:29

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Politics & News

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This is infuriating...

This is infuriating to me. But it seems there was really no chance of winning. Bush's claim to fame is being stubborn and sticking to his decisions even when they are wrong. He won't allow one less soldier to be killed in action...as long as he is still president.

Catherine Morgan
Women 4 Hope and Be The Change You Want To See In Yourself

Submitted by Catherine Morgan on Wed, 05/23/2007 - 09:32

he takes alpha male to the utmost

he is stubborn, full of mission, and seemingly manaically obsessed on this one.
Did you see John Edwards' campaigns' email on this?

Dear Friend,

Like you, we're all very troubled that Congress is backing down to the president and getting ready to give him another blank check to keep the war going.

How could this happen?

Unfortunately, it's simple. The president and his alliesâ€”the whole right-wing buzz machineâ€”are doing what they do every time someone opposes them. They attack their patriotism, call them weak, castigate them for not supporting the troops and don't let up until they get their way. That's the whole point of the political doctrine they call the "global war on terror"â€”it's a sledgehammer they use to crush opposition by twisting the meaning of patriotism, and it's given us the worst abuses and biggest mistakes of the Bush Administration, from Guantanamo to the war in Iraq.

The only way to beat them is to stand our ground and not give an inch. That's what John Edwards did today.

Today, he went to the heart of America's foreign policy establishment and called out the Bush crowd for their misuse of patriotism. He had the guts to say what all of us knowâ€”that the Bush Terror Doctrine has failed our troops and failed America by straining our military to the breaking point and sowing chaos around the world.

John Edwards offered a clear plan to rebuild our forces and cure the damage inflicted on our military by Bush's policies. He offered a vision of an America where moral leadership is once again the rule, and where we are stronger and more secure because of it.

So guess what happened?

The sledgehammer of the global war on terror came right out againâ€”this time aimed squarely at John Edwards. Today, the national Republican party launched a vicious attack at John for asking Americans to speak out to support the troops and end the war.

They actually accused him of profiteering from the war because he's asked for your support and even had the nerve to ask you to pay the cost of a tee shirt. Of course, if the RNC really wants to attack someone for profiteering, they should call Dick Cheney's friends at Halliburton and ask them to return the billions of dollars they've made on a war that Dick Cheney promoted from day one.

Enough is enough. We need to reclaim patriotism from this crowd that has abused it over and over again.

We have a right to speak out. We have a right to stand up for our beliefs. And we have a responsibility to support the campaign that is leading the way and working to end this war.