I am, like the majority, disappointed in the Democratic failure to send bush a supplemental funding bill that sets a timeline for withdrawal.
I am not however, surprised, not surprised in the least.
The Democrat's strategy was a sure fire loser from the start, sorry there's no other way to put it.
I suppose, if I had a question for Harry Reid it would be, "What in the hell where you thinking"?
The supplemental funding bill was not the place to have this showdown. What the democrats created by choosing the supplemental funding bill as the venue for the showdown was a hostage situation.
On the WH side we have bush with a gun to the troops heads saying, "Give me supplemental funding or the troops get it!"
Then we have the Democratics on the other side saying they would solve the situation by shooting the troops first. Brilliant strategy!
What in the hell were you thinking? This strategy had no chance in hell of working.
First, bush had nothing to lose in this showdown, absolutely nothing. What was going to happen to him, are his approval ratings going to go down. The only way for bush's approval ratings to get any lower would be for CNN to air video of him sodomizing children in the rose garden. (Even then I think they would bottom out around 18%. I mean there are still people who listen to Limbaugh and O'Reilly.)
Second, the entire strategy relies on the bush having some aversion to sacrificing troops, he does not. He has proven time and time again that he has no limits on the number of troops he is willing to sacrifice in the war on democrats.
Yes, the war on democrats. The war in Iraq is lost, has been from the start. From the start, there has been no realistic outcome that would benefit the US.
The republicans however have benefited enormously. The Iraq war is littered with the political bodies of Democrats.
bush and rove don't want to end the Iraq war, it is the political windfall of the century. One after another Democrats step up to this Gordian Knot only to leave defeated.
The Supplemental Funding Bill, is no different. Who owns the failure to have an exit strategy for Iraq, george w. bush, commanderguyinchief, the guy who created the mess? No, the democrats own the failure to get the US out of Iraq.
bush and rove don't want to end the war in Iraq, it has been a godsend in the war on Democrats.
What the Democrats need, more than a backbone, is a strategy that could actually win?
In the short term this means that Democrats need to focus on making george w. bush own the Iraq war.
The Democrats need to send bush Supplemental Funding bills that hold his presidency, such as it is, hostage not the troops. Send him a funding bill that makes him choose between funding for abstinence only education or, no compete Halliburton contracts and all of the other WH pet projects to waste our childrens future and funding the troops. Right now george cannot be criticized for any of the hard decisions, he hasn't made any. Let him have some of the fun.
In the long term, Democrats need to focus on getting rid of bush. Democrats need to focus on the USA firings and the illegal wiretapping of Americans. The best thing that Democrats can do for the troops is focus on impeaching bush.