May 22 2007

Dems Surrender To Bush II

Published by at 3:28 pm under All General Discussions,Iraq

The reporting yesterday that the Dems have surrendered to Bush on the Iraq War funding Bills has been confirmed in reporting today:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer confirmed Tuesday a final Iraq spending bill will not include a deadline for troop withdrawals, but promised that Democrats would try to end the war using next year’s spending bills.

“We can’t pass something without the president’s signature and the president can’t pass something without our agreement,” Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters. “So we can be at a standoff and go back and forth at each other, or we can come to an agreement.”

The House planned to vote Thursday on the bill.

While the precise details remained in flux, officials said the legislation would likely threaten billions of dollars in reconstruction aid if the Iraqi government failed to make progress on political and security goals.

But Democrats planned to drop provisions from an earlier bill — vetoed by the president — that would have demanded troops start coming home this fall.

Democratic leaders first will have to sway a large number of Democrats who want to end the war immediately — or pick up enough Republican votes to make up for the losses. Earlier this month, 171 House members voted to order the withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq within nine months.

The fact is the Dems do not have a leg to stand on and never did. And they risk losing the Senate over this matter. Liberals are smart to lower their expectations for anything different in September – barring some massive wins by al Qaeda. The fact is Bush is in this to win and he and Senator Lieberman hold the keys to DC at the moment. In what is an amazing revelation, it seems the debate pushed Lieberman to his limits and he came close to handing the Senate over to the GOP over Iraq:

Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, says his disagreement with the Democrats over the Iraq war won’t prevent him from working with his former party. For now.

“I hope the moment doesn’t come that I feel so separated from the caucus” that he decides to shift allegiance to the Republicans, he said in an interview. Asked what Democratic actions might cause such a break, he invoked Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous 1964 definition of pornography: “I’ll know it when I see it.”

The 65-year-old lawmaker is the margin of difference in the Democrats’ 51-49 control of the Senate. A switch to the Republicans, which he won’t rule out, would create a 50-50 tie that would allow Vice President Dick Cheney to cast a deciding vote for Republican control.

Lieberman has “gone from being dispensable to essential for the Democrats,” said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Lieberman said he already has seen much he doesn’t like from the Democrats, particularly Majority Leader Harry Reid’s decision to co-sponsor, and then allow a vote last week on, legislation cutting off war funding by March.

`A Fundamental Disagreement’

Leiberman said Reid’s recent remark that the war is lost undermined troop morale and left him “terribly” bothered. “I just have a fundamental disagreement,” he said.

Are Dems willing to lose the Senate in their bid to push veto-proof proposals? Hell no. But the Netroots will not take this news well – and they shouldn’t. They were promised change and they got more of the same. Bush will hold firm through next Spring and with Lieberman at his side he can hold out easily. The war debate is over – unless the Dems want to risk it all.

16 responses so far

16 Responses to “Dems Surrender To Bush II”

  1. jimbo1 says:

    This will make the nutroots even more crazed….where is Soothie? Hey Soothie….Bush won another round.

  2. Soothsayer says:

    Keep laughing, Kool-Aid drinkers. Current poll at MSNBC:

    Do you believe President Bush’s actions justify impeachment? Out of 466,995 responses :

    88% Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial.

    4.2% No, like any president, he has made a few missteps, but nothing approaching “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

    5.7% No, the man has done absolutely nothing wrong. Impeachment would just be a political lynching.

    1.8% I don’t know.

  3. kathie says:

    I think it is a great idea……off you go, just try!

  4. kathie says:

    I think it is a great idea……off you go, just try!

  5. Retired Spook says:

    That’s a real scientific poll, Soothie. Been ongoing since 12/21/05. I agree with Kathie — go for it. That would put a damper on the stock market rally, that’s for sure. Either there are not a lot of investors in that 88% or their BDS is so severe that it’s clouded their judgement — or both, heh.

  6. Aitch748 says:

    Right, because a poll conducted by the Keith Olbermann network is a great window on the true feelings of the country as a whole (and never mind the army of Ron Paul true believers who have been flooding online polls so relentlessly). Yup, impeachment would be a real political winner, so let’s see the Dems try that one. Hey, why not war crimes tribunals this summer? I bet the country would REALLY love to see those.

  7. jimbo1 says:

    Hey Soothie…go ahead and try to impeach him.. BTW can you tell me who was the President in 1994 and why that President spied on 300,000 calls ? I think his name was Clinton…..Bill right? Hmmmm. Linky here….http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070522/ap_on_re_us/padilla_terror_chargesSomeone has some splainin to do Lucy..

  8. lurker9876 says:

    OT and a question:

    What is the status of the anti-missile program that the Democrats are desperately trying to kill?

    Did you see how the House voted on Murtha today? What a shame that Murtha was standing in a dark corner surrounded by his democratic friends – all laughing together.

  9. ordi says:

    Lurker

    The Dems TABLE the vote, in other words they KILLED IT. So much for Nancy’s promise of “The Most Ethical Congress.”

    Here is a link about it:

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,274600,00.html

    Sorry but I’m not up on the anti-missile program.

  10. ordi says:

    Soothie forgot to read the fine print on that poll he sighted.

    It reads: Not a scientific survey. Click to learn more. Results may not total 100% due to rounding.

    When you click to learn more you find out this:

    MSNBC’s online surveys (Live Votes) may reflect the views of far more individuals, but they are not necessarily representative of the general population.

    To begin with, the people who respond choose to do so — they are not randomly selected and asked to participate, but instead make the choice to read a story about a certain topic and then vote on a related question. There is thus no guarantee that the votes would reflect anything close to a statistical sample, even of MSNBC.com users: The participants in a Sports Live Vote and a Politics Live Vote may overlap, but each group is likely to be dominated by people with an interest in each particular area. In addition, while MSNBC.com’s Live Votes are designed to allow only one vote per user, someone who wants to vote more than once could simply use another computer or another Internet account.

    Then there is this: MSNBC’s Live Votes are not intended to be a scientific sample of national opinion. Instead, they are part of the same interactive dialogue that takes place in our online chat sessions

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3704453/

    Some mandate! Soothie really needs to stop drinking that “Lefty Lemon Kool-Aid! LOL

  11. Retired Spook says:

    Ordi, we really shouldn’t rain on Soothie’s parade. That liberal wet-dream poll is probably the closest thing he gets to an orgasm.

  12. ordi says:

    RS

    LOL You are so right! We keep giving him a “golden shower” aka pissing on his/her parade. LOL

  13. DubiousD says:

    “The 65-year-old lawmaker is the margin of difference in the Democrats’ 51-49 control of the Senate. A switch to the Republicans, which he won’t rule out, would create a 50-50 tie that would allow Vice President Dick Cheney to cast a deciding vote for Republican control.”

    I think I linked to this in an early post, but if not, here it is again:

    http://politicalinsider.com/2007/02/liebermans_switch_wouldnt_flip.html

    “Many think back to 2001 when former Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-VT) began caucusing with Democrats instead of Republicans, taking control of the Senate out of GOP hands. However, the two situations – though outwardly similar – contain one important difference.

    “If Lieberman were to caucus with the Republicans, they would still not take full control of the Senate, despite Vice President Dick Cheney’s ability to break 50-50 ties. This is because of a little-known Senate organizing resolution, passed in January, which gives Democrats control of the Senate and committee chairmanships until the beginning of the 111th Congress.

    “What’s the difference between now and 2001? A small but important distinction. When the 107th Congress was convened on January 3, 2001, Al Gore was still the Vice President and would be for another two-and-a-half weeks. Therefore, because of the Senate’s 50-50 tie, Democrats had nominal control of the chamber when the organizing resolution came to a vote. With Dick Cheney soon to come in, however, Democrats allowed Republicans to control the Senate in return for a provision on the organizing resolution that allowed for a reorganization of the chamber if any member should switch parties, which Jeffords did five months later. There was no such clause in the current Senate’s organizing resolution.

  14. lurker9876 says:

    Dubious, Mitch McConnell claims that the power would shift if Joe Lieberman switches sides.

  15. AJStrata says:

    Power shifts because they can vote on the rules and suspend them

  16. DubiousD says:

    But would Reid still be Majority Leader? A 51-49 vote is nice. Being able to replace Dem Senate Chairmen with Reps would be better.