The Democrat leaders in Congress have once again bet the house and lost in their uselessly lame attempts to appease their far left base and somehow not appear to be pulling the rug out from under our troops on the front lines. It is impossible to do both things at the same time, so the Dems end up looking bad to both the far left and the rest of America each time they try this trick. This round of disaster is no exception and may be the worst one yet.
You could see the Christmas Surrender on Iraq coming this week:

Each day lately, Democrats inch closer to giving President Bush more money for the war in Iraq without any serious mandates for withdrawing U.S. troops.

Democratic leaders are loath to acknowledge they’ve backed off, but lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, as well as congressional aides, say Democrats are trying to find a way to provide continued troop funding while searching for some compromises that show they’re still intent on challenging the president on the war.

With a half year of sacrifice and success for the troops in Iraq attempts by Dems to punish the troops by withholding needed funds – especially around the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays – was exceptionally tone deaf to the political grist mill they were created. I noted in two posts (here and here) the obvious result of such Scrooge-like political brinkmanship as Americans celebrated with their families. Whoever cooked the idea of a Holiday Jeer to the troops is master of political suicide.

And one has to wonder about such tactics when – as our friend Don Surber notes – Congress is half as popular as the Iraq War! To look at it another way the Iraq war has twice as much support as Congress. If it were not for the GOP efforts to repulse independents and Hispanics I would give them a good probability of taking back Congress.

But the Dems are doing much, much worse. And to illustrate how they can piss off more of the electorate and their base than the GOP, the Dems are trying to sneak the war funding through Congress – as if no one will notice….?

Democrats controlling Congress Thursday sent the most explicit signals yet that they are resigned to providing additional funding for the war in Iraq before Congress adjourns for the year.

Conceding that President Bush is in a strong position as Congress seeks to wrap up its work, Democrats are cooking up a pre-Christmas endgame that would deliver tens of billions of dollars for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan on conditions acceptable to the White House.

The Iraq funding would ultimately be attached by Bush’s Senate GOP allies to a $500 billion-plus “omnibus” appropriations bill taking shape in closed-door talks. That’s the only way they would let the measure advance through the Senate.

House Democratic leaders, though hardly enthusiastic about the idea, recognize it is the only way for Democrats to have a chance to wrap up their long-unfinished budget work before adjourning just before Christmas.

“I anticipate that at some point in time that would be the case,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., when asked if Congress would ultimately vote on Iraq funding without strings attached.

Hoyer acknowledged that Democrats are considering a legislative two-step in which the House would initially pass the catch-all spending bill next week without Iraq funding attached. But the Senate would add the money — as the only way to avoid a GOP filibuster — and House Democrats would reluctantly accept it.

While the far left is ideological lost and bankrupt, it is not brain dead. I think they will figure out the war funding was passed. This attempt to sneak the funding through an Omnibus bill is hilarious. The war funding has always been through stand alone bills so there was no doubt what was being debated and voted and people had to make a stand. The epitome of political cowardice is to try and sneak through.

Well I know what I will be doing tomorrow – I will be reading the leftward side of the blogosphere reading about all the gnashing of teeth and hair pulling that will be going on in light of this bold (retreating) move by the Dems. Pass the popcorn!