In the face of president Bush's unmoving threat to veto any bill that contained a timetable, the Democratic leadership looked certain last night to drop one of the central pledges that they had made in last November's midterm elections.
They appeared to have calculated that if they held out any longer, the party risked being blamed by the electorate for depriving the American troops of essential funding - a charge that they are keen to avoid ahead of next year's presidential elections.
Mm-hmm. I wonder if they have included, in their gruesome moral calculus, how many more troops and civilians get smithereened, how much more money and effort gets wasted, in their "calculations". That must be some calculator.
To sweeten the pill of what at face value appears to be a victory by Mr Bush, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, stressed that this would be the first war-funding bill for Iraq sent to the president "where he won't get a blank cheque".
He vowed to continue the fight to change the direction of the war in debates over next year's funding for the troops.
The Democrats can also point to about $8bn (£4.05bn) included in the $120bn funds provided by the bill that will go towards domestic programmes favoured by the party, such as disaster relief for Hurricane Katrina victims and potentially a rise in the federal minimum wage which would be the first in more than a decade.
As part of the sensitive negotiations between party leaders from both main parties and the White House, benchmarks are likely to be set, which the Iraqi government and army must meet or risk losing economic aid from the US.
However, it is understood that Mr Bush has also won a presidential waiver that would allow him to override the provision.
Whatever. This is the same nauseating, gutless, incrementalist bullshit we should have expected. I understand that politics is the art of the possible. Here's what's possible: force Bush to veto the bill. Force him to explain himself yet again, when most Americans are tuning his dumb ass out anyway. Force him to expend at least some political capital defending the veto, even if there's no chance of actually overturning it.
Look, either you stand for something or you don't. There is no reason to believe anything will be different in three or six months; by that time, all these same Democrats will be worried even more about their electoral viability, and even the non-candidates will be pressured into going with the flow so as not to upset the applecart for the presumptive nominee(s).
This is not why these jokers were put in last November over the other jokers. The election went the way it did for a reason, and it was understood that the party leaders recognized that reason. This is fucking retarded. Exactly what sort of perfect political condition does it take for these people grow the mighty spine to stand up to a 28% knucklehead who can't get out of the way of his own scripted boilerplate?
We were promised that a majority would bring change. So what's changed? Bush got his surge, even after lying about the count and the amount; he hasn't budged on a single meaningful issue. He's been telling them to eat shit and die every chance he gets. And he's dumping the responsibility on to a sucker job pulled out of some political weasel's ass. There has been exactly zero accountability.
Seriously, o esteemed legislative body of the free world -- if not now, when? What the hell are you waiting for?
2 comments:
Couldn't agree more. I said recently that Bush might as well stroll on out to his next talk with the press and answer every single question with his patented smirk and two upraised middle fingers, and it wouldn't be any different from the way he and his cronies keep lying, lying, and lying with shit-eating grins on their faces, knowing that no one will allow themselves to believe it's come to this or do anything about it.
Yes, indeed, I want to hear those Nader bashers explain this. How much more vulnerable to political opposition could a president be who is hovering around 30% and who is opposing the majority of Americans AND Iraqis on this issue? How do you explain why the democrats are more afraid of the one-third of the country that supports the president and the war than the thwo thirds that oppose them?
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