Apr 08 2007
Democrats Surrender To Bush, Will Not Surrender Iraq To al Qaeda
Seems the Democrats have had enough playing games with the supplies and replacement forces needed in Iraq and will now remove all language from their Bills hinting at a surrender date:
Should Bush veto war-funding legislation that sets a limit on the U.S. military presence, Levin said the majority Democrats likely will strip out language calling for troops to start leaving Iraq in four months while keeping demands that the Iraqi government meet benchmarks for quelling sectarian violence.
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Levin’s comments, and similar statements by Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, are the clearest sign yet that senior Democrats won’t force a confrontation with the president that would deny funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Democrats in Congress know they are playing with fire and are already getting burned. The fact is the anti-war forces were duped again. It was only Monday when Sen Majority Leader Reid signed up with Dem Russ Feingold to stop all troop funding except for what is needed for withdrawal. But that ship started sinking by week’s end when freshman Dem Sen Salazaar bolted from the fold and said ‘now way’:
Colorado Senator Ken Salazar broke with the Democratic majority Friday, saying that Congress should not cut off funding for the war in Iraq while U.S. troops are still there.
I am not sure how the anti-war base can stand to even pretend this is a victory of any kind. They held their noses and voted for the compromise Bills that funded the war bet set a date firm for withdrawal, and now the Dem leaders are out saying there will be no date certain for withdrawal. Well, we can find out EXACTLY how they feel. There are more comments here and here – well worth a read.
Seems like some are evaluating the relative risks of trying to balance or determine overall impact of looking for added support by the nutroots for a firm anti-war stance versus more mainstream dem impact.
Seems they are trying to optimize their position while trying not to reach the tipping point of hacking off both sides if they do a bit of a misstep.
I’m thinking that there are two things Bush will not compromise on, the war and taxes.
We are going to have a very tough time in Iraq as long as Iran meddles. We either need a friendly regime in Iran or the border with it must be sealed.
They’ve been getting emails from their constiuents….I know I’ve been sending mine.
However, if you read the article carefully, you will note that while they are saying they will definitely fund the bill if it gets veto’d, they are continuing to suggest that they will monkey with it as much as they can. I think Levin suggested they would “again” introduce different language for a pull-out. If that fails, he suggests they would do the same again, only with less in it, ..until at somepoint..there is a compromise between what they want, and what the president wants. “we can work together”…he suggests.
So, it seems…they’ve been getting email both ways (for and against) and are now officially doing the “Flip-Flop” to be for and against it. It didn’t work for J Kerry in ’04…and it’s not going to work for them now. I would suggest to all of you to email your representatives and, most especially, your senators to let them know you do NOT support them doing this. Do it now.
What a trick! All the pork is still in the bill!
Did you just get snookered?
Did the donkeys in congress roll the elephant? What bowled the elephant over onto its side?
Now is the time for the Four-letter-word.
Good news.
Thought pork is still non-binding?
Democrats hold off on surrendering…
For now. Last week, Barack Obama declared that, if Bush vetoes the current Iraq War supplemental, the Senate will drop the surrender dates from the next version of the bill. Today, Senator Carl Levin has reiterated that stance:
Senate Armed Services Co…
Dims won’t give up. They are still trying to micromanage not only the war but the presidency. What other language can this be? They demand benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet. What does that mean other than they want to manage foreign policy. Bush will not sign any bill that infringes on the authority of the presidency. He would be a fool to do so. What will happen is that they will send bill after bill to Bush in the hopes of him giving up and signing one of them in desperation for the troops. I hope Bush was smart enough to put aside funds just in case the dims did this. Surely he did given what happened in the Viet Nam war.
Shumer has infringed on the presidency for the last six years and Spector has always had the attitude that the executive and judicial branches have no authority on any legislature that congress chooses to pass.
For more than 100 years our Senate was appointed by the state legislatures. That changed after the civil war for good reason but those reasons are no longer in play. The Senate should go back to being appointed by the states. This would remove a lot of the posturing in the media by these people. They would have more freedom to say what they really think and less a slave to the direction of the wind in the press. People that have good minds could be appointed, not people that have to money to run a media campaign. The Senate could go back to being the great deliberative body that it once was.
CP
There is a lot of reasons to support your position.
The senators were the ones who represented the state they came froms interest.
Now states are basically neutered on the national level and end up too many times being tasked with unfunded mandates.
I would even settle for a compromise where the legislature nominates two or more candidates and the people choose from among them for an open seat. It certainly would take a lot of money out of Senate campaigns and put some focus by the party central committees back into state politics. It would also give the smaller states real equalization with the larger states. And yes, as you point out, it would end congressional unfunded mandates as the Senators would have their state legislature to answer to for their vote.
We also need to change the way delegates are assigned in primaries and electors in presidential elections. Instead of “winner take all” you should divide the delegates up according to percentage of votes. A lot of early “winner take all” elections very early can result in an idiot gaining all the delegates very early and a party running a sub-optimal candidate. Having the delegates spread out means that candidates wll have some clout come convention time and coalitions can be formed to launch a better candidate.
Same with electors. The winner of each congressional district gets one electoral vote. The overall winner of the state gets two more. In that way, the electoral vote more accurately reflects the popular vote. With our current system, a candidate can lose a large state by a tiny margin (one vote) and win several small states by huge margins yet lose the overall election because that huge state was “winner take all”. Getting rid of “winner take all” electoral votes would align the electoral college more with the popular vote without skewing a state’s electors away from the state’s voters as the recent Maryland plan would do.
crosspatch:
Not a bad idea, but I doubt that it will ever happen.
If you do any of that, then the voters themsevles loose a direct path of responsiblity to the senators. It also opens the door to political favors..as a means of appointment..etc. Its not a good idea, in my opinion, to go back in time—to a time when they felt the common folk were not savy enough to pick a politicial candiate. We dont’ need to go back to those times…nor would it be good for us to in my opinion.
I would rather have my senators, etc..answer directly to “me” than I would to have them offering up political favor jobs, etc. to those in power/majority who could appoint them. It would in fact be “worse’ for the problems we see today…ie..party line policy, as opposed to making decision based on voters in their state. And you’d be crap out of luck holding anyone responsible for anything. Your senator, appointed by other reps outside your district..would care less what you thought about anything. That’s not the way it should be in my view.
Far be it for me to rain on the Strataspherista parade . . . but reality impinges . . .
In spite of all the whining and moaning from WSJ, Rush the Drug Dealer, MacRanger, Michelle, Ann et alii, Congress’s ratings are the highest in a year after only 100 days of providing oversight for the lawless Bush administration.
By the time Gonzales is run out of town, Scooter Libby sentenced and the troops yanked out of Iraq – Congressional polling will be sky-high.
It’s called the will of the people.
Of course…as soon as some polls come out showing congress approval at an all time low and people started talking about it…AP comes up with a poll showing just the opposite and did a Google Blast on it (the first 7 pages of google had the AP report..flooding the news with it). It’s rather obvious don’t you think? Your masks are running out.