Democrats Relent On Pullout Timetable – washingtonpost.com
Where to start? Does this piece of legislation move the ball forward towards a goal of ending the war in Iraq? Barely, nearly imperceptibly. It force the White House to accept some political benchmarks in Iraq, but does nothing to bring the war one day closer to ending. The Iraqi government has thus far failed miserably when it comes to internal political progress. In this instance failure will be met with withholding a reconstruction monies. I don’t think that will help stabilize the situation on the ground.
It gets a bit of progress domestically with provisions on the minimum wage, funding veterans’ benefits and Katrina relief. I find it strange that the president would need to be forced to fund the last two items. Should the package be considered anything other than an ignominious defeat for congressional majority leaders? Nope. I can state that I personally supported and voted for democrats in the last mid-term election because I expected them to move forward on ending the war, not to settle for a compromise, which is so heavily tilted in favor of misguided White House priorities.
Update: Scarecrow over at FDL:
One by one, Democratic leaders tried to put the best face they could on the reality that they do not have enough votes to force an obstinate President to accept a timetable or binding benchmarks on the Iraq supplemental funding bill. It was a painful moment, a major disappointment to those who hoped that somehow the Democrats could find a clever way to defy the basic math. But we all knew from last week’s vote on Feingold-Reid we are still many votes short of overriding a veto. Hundreds more will die including these people and their families, waiting for those votes. Every member who fails to vote to end this madness is responsible.
Ultimately this mess will be passed off on whomever is unfortunate enough to be the next President. I think that chances are slim that a Republican can win unless they repudiate Bush’s Iraq war policy. So basically, he’s just stalling until he can clear out his desk and go back to Texas. Meanwhile people will die. It’s simply immoral.
