What? "Over"? Did you say "over"? Nothing's over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no! And it ain't over now. Cause when the going gets tough... the tough get going! Who's with me? Let's go! Come on! . . . What the fuck happened to the Delta I used to know? Where's the spirit? Where's the guts? This could be the greatest night of our lives ... but you're gonna let it be the worst. "We're afraid to go with you, Bluto. We might get in trouble." (Shouting) Just kiss my ass from now on. Not me! l won't take this! Wormer is a dead man! Marmalard: dead! Neidermeyer . . . Dead.
A really futile and stupid gesture on my part on the flip.
Point of parliamentary procedure . . . Ladies and gentlemen, l'll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules or... took a few liberties with our female party guests. We did. . . .
Ooops, sorry what was I talking about, oh ending the Iraq War. Now we have heard from too many quarters that it is tooooo haaaard to fight to end the Iraq War. That we have to wait for the NEXT election to do it. Why? Well, I am not exactly sure what the theory is, but it surely can not be because the Congress does not have the power. Senator Feingold said it well:
Our founders wisely kept the power to fund a war separate from the power to conduct a war. In their brilliant design of our system of government, Congress got the power of the purse, and the President got the power of the sword. As James Madison wrote, "Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued or concluded."
. . . If and when Congress acts on the will of the American people by ending our involvement in the Iraq war, Congress will be performing the role assigned it by the founding fathers – defining the nature of our military commitments and acting as a check on a President whose policies are weakening our nation.
There is little doubt that decisive action from the Congress is needed. Despite the results of the election, and two months of study and supposed consultation -- during which experts and members of Congress from across the political spectrum argued for a new policy -- the President has decided to escalate the war. When asked whether he would persist in this policy despite congressional opposition, he replied: "Frankly, that’s not their responsibility."
Last week Vice President Cheney was asked whether the non-binding resolution passed by the Foreign Relations Committee that will soon be considered by the full Senate would deter the President from escalating the war. He replied: "It’s not going to stop us."
In the United States of America, the people are sovereign, not the President. It is Congress’ responsibility to challenge an administration that persists in a war that is misguided and that the country opposes. We cannot simply wring our hands and complain about the Administration’s policy. We cannot just pass resolutions saying "your policy is mistaken." And we can’t stand idly by and tell ourselves that it’s the President’s job to fix the mess he made. It’s our job to fix the mess, and if we don’t do so we are abdicating our responsibilities.
Tomorrow, I will introduce legislation that will prohibit the use of funds to continue the deployment of U.S. forces in Iraq six months after enactment. By prohibiting funds after a specific deadline, Congress can force the President to bring our forces out of Iraq and out of harm’s way.
This legislation will allow the President adequate time to redeploy our troops safely from Iraq, and it will make specific exceptions for a limited number of U.S. troops who must remain in Iraq to conduct targeted counter-terrorism and training missions and protect U.S. personnel. It will not hurt our troops in any way – they will continue receiving their equipment, training and salaries. It will simply prevent the President from continuing to deploy them to Iraq. By passing this bill, we can finally focus on repairing our military and countering the full range of threats that we face around the world.
. . . The answer should be clear. Since the President is adamant about pursuing his failed policies in Iraq, Congress has the duty to stand up and use its power to stop him. If Congress doesn’t stop this war, it’s not because it doesn’t have the power. It’s because it doesn’t have the will.
I would ask any and all kossacks, who disagrees with Senator Feingold? Obviously Congress CAN end the war. So what is the concern? Politics? Losing the Congress? Afraid to be called "cut and runners?" Well, yes, this is deja vu all over again:
After a day filled with hot air, with Democrats vehemently crying for up and down votes on nonbinding resolutions to oppose the Bush Iraq Surge, and the GOP desperately trying to avoid going on the record in support of the Bush surge, the very smart columnist E J Dionne learns some correct lessons and some incorrect ones. The correct ones:
In other words: Even if a substantial majority of Congress that includes many Republicans demonstrates a lack of confidence in the Bush-Cheney surge, the administration will feel free to ignore the other elected branch of our government -- and the more recently elected branch (remember November, anyone?) at that.
And the GOP wants avoid getting shackled with Iraq in 2008. This is clear and that seems obvious to me. But what EJ is missing is that this Kabuki will mean nothing in November 2008. But, to be fair, EJ sees this as building up for a reversal of Iraq policy:
The impatience of the administration's critics is entirely understandable. But it would be a shame if impatience got in the way of a sensible long-term strategy to bring America's engagement in this war to as decent an end as possible as quickly as possible -- even if not as quickly as they'd like. The anti-surge resolution is a necessary first step, which is why those who are against a genuine change in our Iraq policy are fighting so hard to stop it.
Dionne is incorrect here. This does NOT lead to a sensible long term strategy to end the war. It is NOT a first step towards that. Russ Feingold is right:
This is not a time to finesse the situation. This is not a time for a slow walk. This almost reminds me a little bit of the way Democrats behaved in October 2002, which was trying to play it safe, trying to use words such as 'well, we're going to vote for this resolution, but what it really means is that the president should go to the UN. That stuff doesn’t fly. And this kind of attempt to go a little bit of the way just to show you're on the other side of the president doesn’t fly either.
But what of the politics? Won't the GOP accuse the Dems of surrendering? Of cutting and running? Feingold is right here too:
They want to be immune from criticism from the White House. That's not how you win, by being afraid of the criticism. You stand up to the criticism and you say 'they were wrong. They took us in there on a fraudulent basis, they’ve screwed this up, they've screwed up the war against terrorism, they’ve weakened out military. We are going to take a completely different approach.'
As for cutting and running, Karl Rove was going to hang that around the Dems' necks in the 2006 elections:
These are the stakes: if Rove can successfully con Democrats into ignoring Iraq and reciting their laundry list of other priorities, Republicans win. It's shameful that the minimum wage hasn't been raised in nine years and that thousands of ailing Americans will ultimately die because of Bush's position on stem-cell research. But those issues won't get the Congress back for Democrats. Iraq can.
You would think it would be the GOP running away from the war. Instead, in gamblers' parlance, Republicans "doubled down" on Iraq. After the good news about Zarqawi's death, they bet that by uniting behind Bush, they would shift the blame to the squabbling Democrats, even though the Democrats have no power at all to change—or even affect—policy on the ground. Rove's notion is that strong and wrong beats meek and weak.
It almost worked. It looked recently as if Democrats were so fearful of being cast as war weenies that they would change the subject. . . . But then, some Senate Democrats got smart for a change. . . . So now 80 percent of Senate Democrats are united behind something called the "Levin-Reed Amendment." The details of it (begin withdrawal without a firm timetable for getting out completely; diplomacy with the Sunnis; purging the Iraqi military and police of bad guys) are less important than that they finally came up with something. . . . Sen. Joe Biden's riposte to the GOP's symbolic roll-call votes— "The Republicans are now totally united in a failed policy"— is a start. This isn't rocket science. Unless things improve dramatically on the ground in Iraq . . . If you believe the Iraq war is a success, vote Republican. If you believe it is a failure, vote Democratic.
And the Democrats pummelled the Republicans. And nothing has changed politically. Democrats must stay firmly in favor of withdrawal. By defunding the Iraq War.
It is the right thing to do. It is also the smart thing to do.