U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced today that they are introducing legislation that will effectively end the current military mission in Iraq and begin the redeployment of U.S. forces. The bill requires the President to begin safely redeploying U.S. troops from Iraq 120 days from enactment, as required by the emergency supplemental spending bill the Senate passed last week. The bill ends funding for the war, with three narrow exceptions, effective March 31, 2008.
That’s the right response to threats from Bush to veto his own Iraq money. Passing a watered down bill would send a message of weakness to the administration and just intensify its attacks on the will of the American people.
Snark aside, that last point is the clincher. Congress unquestionably stands with the bulk of the American people when it moves to get America out of Iraq. If anything most Americans blame Democrats for not moving aggressively enough. George Bush has, what? He can count on the support of Hannity and Limbaugh’s more diehard fans. The president has the voices in his own head, which (unless you subscribe to a fringe sect of protestantism) he thinks is God. Dittoheads and Hannityites have run so far to the fringe that any pol who follows their soothing voice will find himself dashed on the electoral rocks, and the voices in Bush’s head can’t vote. If anybody stands on a sandy cliff edge when it comes to intransigence over Iraq, it isn’t Harry Reid.
ThymeZone
Yes, call Bush’s bluff. Force Republicans to paint themselves farther and farther into the Iraq corner.
Already, GOP members are figuring that their reelection chances are hanging by threads. Strong and well funded Dem candidates are going to win in 2008 and create an even bigger Dem majority on Capitol Hill. There are few things on earth more self serving than the ambitions of members of congress. Let’s see them rally behind the Joke President for the next year. Bring it.
Let the Dems drive this wedge between the minority members now. Right up the ass of the Republican caucus.
You go, Harry.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
The voices in my head tell me we have a new Constitutional Amendment debate coming up…
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Well, at least Bush didn’t get any blowjobs in the Oral Office. He restored integrity to the Office. It has been a firmly G-rated room for the last 6 and a half years, with not even a moment that decency would prevent you from sharing with the world if a camera should accidentally turn on and broadcast the room’s goings-on nationwide. That’s what the 2000 Election was all about, and that’s what the 2008 election will be about, too.
I’m voting for the candidate who pledges not to have sex for the next 4-8 years. That candidate is probably going to turn out to be Brownback, but McCain could still surprise us.
Rome Again
Yeah, it’s why I became an Independent.
Jake
I can hear the OutrageEngines (TM) revving up even now. And hark, the Decider is filling up his veto writin’ pen.
I know it is tempting to think this man gives a shit about public opinion but I can’t think of any solid evidence that supports that view. Once a person reaches a state where God Told Me is the justification for his actions you are well beyond where the buses don’t run. You’d be lucky to find a damn dirt track.
Myrtle Parker
Democrats are worse.
Punchy
Somebody…anybody…explain this meme to me. The House has passed damn near everything it’s set out to do. In the Senate, Dems have been blocked by filibusters. IOW, the Dems have done everything they possibly can. Without 60 Senators, they’re always going to be blocked. Blame the filibustering Rs, not the Dems.
LLeo
What is KMBA?
LLeo
Actually, this latest vote was not fillibustered. That alone was a success for the Dems. However, if the President vetoes whatever bill comes out of conference, the Dems will need 66 votes. They may get 60 votes just because the weak willed Republicans will vote for it so they can say they did, but still rest easy knowing that it won’t pass.
I think by September the Senate will have close to 66 votes to override any veto.
Darrell, D'Souza, Delay and Strauss
Even with all my great minds, I haven’t been able to figure that one out either.
Zombie Santa Claus
Meanwhile, TWOC rages on, a forgotten war lost in Democrat hubris and witch-hunting.
Last week, 14 elves from the Keebler regiment gave their lives for religious freedom. What did the Democrats say about their noble sacrifice? Nary a peep, not a word of support.
Show that you’re serious about protecting American values, Democrats. Act now to save America’s allies at the North Pole. Pressure Canada to relent in its interminable invasion. If they won’t, use the military option. Don’t let future generations say that these elves gave their lives in vain…
Zombie Santa Claus
Kiss My Black Ass, apparently.
HyperIon
the two white boys that run this site somehow think that kiss my black ass is an appropriate expression for them to use. i don’t understand why.
Zombie Santa Claus
How do we know they’re white, though?
Zombie Santa Claus
Also, does it even matter? Well, unless we’re really going to start accusing Tim of racism, anyway. Seems a bit harsh to me.
LLeo
Ah, thanks for the clarification. I had a lovely friend in High School that used the phrase “Suck my left tittie”. She would accentuate the comment by grasping and lifting her left breast. She was a very cool chick.
I personally use the phrase “Blow me”. I figure that is more racially and anatomically correct for my race & gender.
Krista
I think it’s one of those expressions that’s starting to make its way into the popular vernacular, regardless of the shade of the particular speaker’s ass. “Kiss my white ass” just doesn’t really sound right.
Zombie Santa Claus
SMLT.
Sounds like it.
“Blow” is an inaccurate description of the activity, though. I prefer SMELT, “Suck my Ex’s Left Tittie.” SMELT also has the double meaning, as in, “He who smelt it, dealt it,” the only viable retort left for the Bush Administration vis-a-vis its Democratic accusers. (It could also refer to ironworking, but that will probably turn out to be less relevant on a political blog.)
Zombie Santa Claus
Maybe you’re right. “KMBA” sounds like a radio station, though.
Jake
I had a friend in college who invited those who annoyed her to “suck my big black dick. Seeing as she was about 5 foot nuthin, and obviously without said appendage it created a bit of the old cognitive dissonance. Since she is African-American I guess it would be hard to make the case that she was being racist. Perhaps sexist?
All I know is I nearly blew a french fry out my nose the first time she said it.
Chad N. Freude
From your lips to the voting machines’ input devices. I’m not so sanguine about this. While I don’t share Rush L’s contempt for seventy-some per cent of American voters, I think that a lot of them can be swayed by Swift-boating, perceived military success of the October surprise variety, hope (uniter not a divider, integrity back to the Oval Office, etc.) Keep your voting machine button-pushing fingers crossed.
Zifnab
One day, I will take my children on my knee, open up a newspaper dated to 4/2/2007, point to the news and say, “Read it, learn it, love it. These are what balls look like.”
After 6 fucking years, Democrats have finally found a pair. I look forward to the impending game of ro-sham-bo.
ImJohnGalt
And can we please remember why we’ve come to this impasse in the first place? Because George Fucking Bush didn’t add the war funding to the budget, but instead kept it off balance-sheet through these supplemental funding bills.
If you want the money, just add it to your fucking budget. I’m so tired of the Republicans getting pissed at Democrats for asking that they be honest about their fucking intentions.
You want to out a CIA agent, fine. Just be honest about it. You want to fire a bunch of attorneys, fine. Just own the fucking decision, instead of lying about the reasons several times and waiting for the right-blogosphere come up with a palatable set of justifications.
Chad N. Freude
Honesty is for privileged advice to the President behind the proverbial closed doors, not for public consumption.
Jake
Yep, it was those sissy do-nothing Dems. The majority party had nothing to do with this big fucking mess.
ConservativelyLiberal
I quit the Democratic party and became an independent (no party affiliation) back in the early 90’s (’92 to be exact). I did so because the PC crowd had taken over the party, and I don’t do Politically Correct. I say what I feel or think, or want to crack a joke about. The whole nanny state concept is something I dislike intensely. I chose my name here because I I am not a conservative or liberal, I am both.
On some issues I lean left, on others I lean right. I think that most Americans are the same, and that presents the two parties with a host of problems in winning elections. While I would like to see the Dems pull off the Prez position in ’08 (Richardson is my fav, forget Hillary, Obama? Mixed feelings about not enough experience…), I would rather that the House or Senate is put back in Repub hands if a Dem wins in ’08. I do not want the government in the control of one party, I like tension. We now have that back, and it makes for better government IMO.
I vote for the person, not the party. I voted for Repubs and Dems in the last election, and I will probably do so in the next election. Though I do have to admit that I have never voted for a Repub prez in the last 30 years, but there has not been one worth supporting yet. But in that time, I only voted for the Dem prez candidate three times. In the other elections, Goofy got my write in vote…
Even though I voted Dem in the last two Prez elections, I got Goofy anyway. I think I need to change my write in…
As far as Sen. Reid, go man go! It is time to play hardball with BushCo. Watching this administration fall apart would be more fun if it was not our country that the wheels are falling off of. Any Repub that supports this war will not get my vote in the next election. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Oregon) has got that message loud and clear as we Oregonians are sick and tired of this disaster the Repubs keep applying lipstick to.
Mona
You Dhimmicrats are seriously deluded. Dan Riehl says this bill is offered by
the leading anti-American Senator Russ Feingold. So, is there really anything more you need to know about its merits?
Dulcie
Well if Dan Riehl says it, it MUST be true! //snark
Rome Again
I love that line Tim.