Bush Set to Win Budget Battle
After a couple of weeks of partisan bickering, US President George W. Bush is set to win the battle over the US budget and thus (new) war funding. Or, from a slightly different perspective, Democrats are about to cave in.
Democratic lawmakers told CNN that “they’re closing in on a broad budget deal that would give President Bush as much as $70 billion in new war funding.” According to these lawmakers (and staffers) the deal would “lack a key provision Democrats had attached to previous funding bills calling for most U.S. troops to come home from Iraq by the end of 2008, which would be a significant legislative victory for Bush.”
If Democrats will, indeed, agree to such a plan, Nancy Pelosi will once again have disappointed the Democratic base. Only a few weeks ago she “vowed the White House would not get another dollar in war money this year.”
One Democratic staffer concluded: “the base will not be happy.”
You think? After being lied to for weeks, months, and even years? After having been told by the Democratic leaders time and again that they would ‘bring the troops home asap’ while this was and is completely irresponsible and not doable? After months of telling the base what it wants to hear, not because it’s politically attainable but because it energizes the base and, thus, ensures Democratic victories in elections?
Of course I, and with me many foreign policy hawks and especially American conservatives, am happy with the Democratic leaders’ decision to give in to Bush’s demands. It doesn’t come as a surprise since they’ve given in to Bush time and again, throughout is presidency. But the base, well, the Democratic / liberal base ain’t happy:
it is time to start thinking about how we can change the Democratic leadership in Congress…
If the leadership we have isn’t getting the job done, we need to think about how to get better leadership. Perhaps we could even change leadership behavior without actually replacing the leaders. I don’t really know, but I do know that what we are doing right now isn’t working.
Ah well, next time they’ll simply promise things they can’t do in reality again and ‘the base’ will fall for it… again.
I think that cleaning up among the contractors, holding said cronies and "capitalist" crooks accountable, building Iraqi infrastructure and ensuring that Iraqis have something stabilizing (apart from the walls and checkpoints the US relies on now to uphold the tenuous peace) even after the US takes its finger out of the dike is more important than "rescuing our young men and women" (who knew what they were up for when they enlisted) or ending the "imperialism" (especially when Huckabee’s "We broke it, we do our best first" approach is more honorable").
I think it is better to take the "W" out of the war than ending it without doing the utmost for the Iraqis first. I guess the best analogy would be to take the baby out of the bathwater rather than draining the bathwater just to spite the baby, but I wouldn’t want to insult anyone’s baby by comparing them to the current president.
A Peanuts comic strip with Nancy as Lucy, setting up the football for the gullible Charlie Brown comes to mind…
Of course the trouble for Pelosi is that the netroot Charlie Browns will eventually learn not to keep kicking.
"After having been told by the Democratic leaders time and again that they would ‘bring the troops home asap’ while this was and is completely irresponsible and not doable?"
The tired old meme returns!
but they overwhelmingly voted on Christmas.
Very important step.
Pathetic congress.
"Men fit to be slaves!"Said by the emperor Tiberius upon leaving the Senate, according to Tacitus
"but they overwhelmingly voted on Christmas.
Very important step."
If you don’t say that christianity and religion is really important over and over some dissent or scepticism might brake through and you would have to actually prove it.