Tag: Defunding

I started to write a comment in response to Armando’s excellent essay asking the question (and I’m paraphrasing), Why are the Democrats given a pass in the media about Congress’s ability to end the Iraq war by doing nothing? But as I continued to write, I decided it was probably more appropriate to be a seperate essay (my first here at Docudharma) rather than a comment, because it was this very issue back in February of this year that led me to my opinions and conclusions about what the Democrats were planning to do.

So with that in mind, my response continues below.

is the reality that Democrats can end the Debacle by not funding it. The power of doing nothing is lost on them. Instead, we see the Republican Party responding to its base (h/t Josh Marshall):

Despite months of pressure, no more than eight Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate have backed any measure that mandates a troop withdrawal. And GOP strategists predict that is unlikely to change.

“Republicans have to be cognizant of where their base is,” said pollster Bob Wickers, whose company has worked with Republican candidates in a dozen states in recent years.

Here's my question, why don't Democrats have to be cognizant of where THE COUNTRY is? Josh's post is really missing this point – that Democrats won in 2006 on Iraq. That THEIR base and the country want out of Iraq. And that they have the power to stop the war. By doing nothing. It is the central insight and is missing from much of the Iraq coverage, Media and blogs alike.

Buhdy e-mails me about this:

Pelosi made three specific promises on the question of funding the war and on the Congressional battle over FISA: 1) that the House will not take up a war appropriations bill this year 2) that there will be no war appropriations bill next year that doesn’t include a fixed date for bringing the troops home 3) that House Democrats will put up a major fight over the Bush administration’s desire to make permanent the FISA law passed in August, particularly over the issue of retroactive immunity that the Senate has already given in on.

and asks:

Parsing? or Progress?

Here’s my take – let’s act as if it is a real promise from Nancy Pelosi. Let’s praise and cheer her for standing up. Let’s tell her we have her back on this.

Why? Because it has a better chance of becoming true if we react to it in that way. And that is all that matters.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told George Stepanapoulos today:

I am one of the most vociferous opponents of the [Iraq] War . . .

Excuse me Madame Speaker, but are you fucking kidding me? Nearly 90 House members have signed this letter:

The Honorable George W. Bush
President
United States of America
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

Seventy House Members wrote in July to inform you that they will only support appropriating additional funds for U.S. military operations in Iraq during Fiscal Year 2008 and beyond for the protection and safe redeployment of our troops out of Iraq before you leave office.

Now you are requesting an additional $45 billion to sustain your escalation of U.S. military operations in Iraq through next April, on top of the $145 billion you requested for military operations during FY08 in Iraq and Afghanistan. Accordingly, even more of us are writing anew to underscore our opposition to appropriating any additional funds for U.S. military operations in Iraq other than a time-bound, safe redeployment as stipulated above.

More than 3,742 of our brave soldiers have died in Iraq. More than 27,000 have been seriously wounded. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed or injured in the hostilities and more than 4 million have been displaced from their homes. Furthermore, this conflict has degenerated into a sectarian civil war and U.S. taxpayers have paid more than $500 billion, despite assurances that you and your key advisors gave our nation at the time you ordered the invasion in March, 2003 that this military intervention would cost far less and be paid from Iraqi oil revenues.

We agree with a clear and growing majority of the American people who are opposed to continued, open-ended U.S. military operations in Iraq, and believe it is unwise and unacceptable for you to continue to unilaterally impose these staggering costs and the soaring debt on Americans currently and for generations to come.

Sincerely,

Co-signers: Murphy (CT), Jackson, Brown (FL), Thompson (MS), Watt, Meeks, Loebsack, Weiner, Kucinich, DeFazio, Farr, Waxman, Thompson (CA), Lee, Woolsey, Waters, Watson, Frank, Conyers, Filner, Rush, Towns, Clay, Wynn, Delahunt, Holmes-Norton, Butterfield, Solis, Maloney, Nadler, Honda, Cohen, Hare, Napolitano, Hastings, McGovern, Kaptur, Schakowsky, Carson, Linda Sanchez, Grijalva, Olver, Jackson-Lee, McDermott, Markey, Fattah, Pallone, Hinojosa, Stark, Scott (VA), Moran, McCollum, Oberstar, DeGette, Tauscher, Holt, Hinchey, Pastor, Davis (IL), Hall, Velazquez, Rangel, Hodes, Blumenauer, Lynch, Artur Davis, Johnson (GA), Payne, Cleaver, Lewis, Clarke, Abercrombie, Moore(WI), Ellison, Baldwin, Christensen, Scott (GA), Paul, Gutierrez, Welch, Capps, Rothman, Cummings, Tierney, Doggett, Eshoo, and Tubbs-Jones.

The name Pelosi is not among the signatories. When Pelosi signs that letter; when she promises that she will not put forward any bills to fund Iraq without a date certain to end the Iraq Debacle, then she can claim to be “one of the most vocieferous opponents of the Iraq War.” She is not one of the most vociferous opponents of the Iraq war. She needs to do everything she can to end it and then she can truthfully claim to be such. Until then, Pelosi is simply not telling the truth.

When Nancy Pelosi says:

“We have to make responsible decisions in the Congress that are not driven by the dissatisfaction of anybody who wants the war to end tomorrow,” Pelosi told the gathering at the Sofitel, arranged by the Christian Science Monitor. Though crediting activists for their “passion,” Pelosi called it “a waste of time” for them to target Democrats. “They are advocates,” she said. “We are leaders.”

It captures virtually no attention from the Left blogs. Instead we get this:

“Name one hero. Just one.” A woman in the audience raised her hand and said “Eli Pariser.” Then everybody clapped.

MoveOn is an incredibly valuable asset on the progressive side and it’s no surprise that entrenched Democrats who see them as a threat took an opportunity to take a swipe at them. . . . MoveOn stuck their necks out. And I believe it worked. People talk about it as if it was a “distraction.” From what? From ending the war? As if. I hope they continue to find meaningful ways to combat the horrible trajectory this country seems to be on by continuing to fight for progressive values.

Stuck their necks out? A threat to entrenched Democrats? Puhleeeaze. They probably raised more money than they have all year. They support these entrenched Democrats. It begins to smell like a racket to me. This was Move On when it mattered:

MoveOn’s Washington director, Tom Matzzie just confirmed to me that despite earlier concerns that the House Dem leadership’s Iraq plan wasn’t tough enough, the organization yesterday started polling its members and has decided to back the legislation . . .  “Our view is, this is a choice between Republicans who want endless war and Democrats who want a safe, responsible end to the war.”

Democrats like Nancy Pelosi who will not do what needs to be done to end the Debacle? You think Move On will run an ad on Pelosi? It smells like a racket to me. Who will speak for the “irresponsible ones” who want Congress to do what it must to end the war – not fund it after a date certain? Not Move On. Not the Left blogs. Not the Left pundits. Where are the “heroes?” Who is defending and supporting the Progressive Caucus? Those folks are the heroes. Not Move On. Not the Left blogs.

News From Rep. Barbara Lee:

Asked what Congress should do with President Bush’s pending Iraq supplemental request, the poll found that 70 percent of respondents want Congress to either vote against the President’s request or require that funds can only be used for my plan to protect troops and bring them home. And by a two to one margin, respondents favored requiring that funds be spent on redeployment instead of providing the administration funds without conditions

She asks us to contact our representatives and support this plan. That is my intention, and I hope you’ll join me.

Amazing:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was in a determinedly good mood when she sat down to lunch with reporters yesterday. . . . But her spirits soured instantly when somebody asked about the anger of the Democratic “base” over her failure to end the war in Iraq.

“Look,” she said, the chicken breast on her plate untouched. “I had, for five months, people sitting outside my home, going into my garden in San Francisco, angering neighbors, hanging their clothes from trees, building all kinds of things — Buddhas? I don’t know what they were — couches, sofas, chairs, permanent living facilities on my front sidewalk.” Unsmilingly, she continued: “If they were poor and they were sleeping on my sidewalk, they would be arrested for loitering, but because they have ‘Impeach Bush’ across their chest, it’s the First Amendment.”

Though opposed to the war herself, Pelosi has for months been a target of an antiwar movement that believes she hasn’t done enough. Cindy Sheehan has announced a symbolic challenge to Pelosi in California’s 8th Congressional District. And the speaker is seething.

“We have to make responsible decisions in the Congress that are not driven by the dissatisfaction of anybody who wants the war to end tomorrow,” Pelosi told the gathering at the Sofitel, arranged by the Christian Science Monitor. Though crediting activists for their “passion,” Pelosi called it “a waste of time” for them to target Democrats. “They are advocates,” she said. “We are leaders.”

She hates us. She really hates us. But by all means, let’s coddle the Dem leaders in Congress. I’m sure she’ll lead us somewhere. Suuuure she will.

The problem with liberal pundits is that they are capable of being overtaken by herd mentalities just like their conservative colleagues. On Iraq, the majority of liberal pundits have bought into the the patently false notion that the Congress has done “everything it can” to end the war while at the same time deciding Hillary Clinton is not pure on Iraq, notwithstanding the facts. Take Harold Meyerson for instance:

. . . Congressional Democrats have honorably tried and failed to scale back the war; the Senate's requirement of a 60-vote supermajority to alter policy requires supermajority support from the public for an altered Senate.

This is simply false. Meyerson can not be ignorant of the fact that no bill need be passed to end the war. That in fact, FUNDING the war requires passage of a bill and not funding does not. Meyerson gives the Congress a free pass while taking shots at Hillary Clinton:

Paul Waldman writes a good piece about Rush Limbaugh saga. I especially like his connecting Rush' New McCarthyism techniques to the Republican Party New McCarthyism on Iraq:

Think about how much time and effort they expend on convincing Americans that progressives and Democrats are “anti-military,” “hate the troops,” and even “hate America.” So any progressive veteran who criticizes Bush administration policies represents a profound threat to all the arguments they have made. It becomes particularly thorny when nearly the entire current leadership of the conservative movement — not only media figures like Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, but also political figures including President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and many others — were of draft age during the Vietnam war but managed to stay out of harm's way.

But Democrats and their allies like Move On do not win this battle by aping this strategy, as Move On wrongly did; this battle is won by Democrats standing up against these McCarthyite tactics and, more importantly, standing up to Bush on Iraq. That means not funding the Iraq debacle after a date certain. More.

Ezra Klein wrote a great piece taking apart the very silly Roger Cohen's lament that “liberal hawks” like himself are misunderstood. They are NOT neocons Cohen insists. Ezra responded:

This shouldn't be necessary to say, but increasingly, it seems like the only point worth making to the commentariat. American politics isn't about you. It's not about your ideas, or your personal vision of the world, or your purity. . . . It is the impact of your ideas, and your commentary, that matters. . . . Here's why: Roger Cohen is not president. George W. Bush is. And until Roger Cohen's foreign policy vision integrates itself with an understanding of American power, and how ideas interact with the current administration, he is, effectively, a neoconservative, or, worse, an enabler of the neoconservatives who's able to advocate for their policy agenda without needing to answer for their failures.

(Emphasis supplied.) Great stuff. But it is worth asking this question – are progressive pundits, progressive blogs, and progressive activists considering  how their “ideas interact with the current administration?” I think not. There is precious little discussion from most about the fact that the only way to stop the Bush Administration's Iraq Debacle is to not fund it after a date certain. So either they are of the view that NOTHING can stop the Iraq Debacle while Bush is President (and if they think so, they should say so), or they are just as guilty of the narcissism Klein accuses Cohen of. Moreover, while George Bush will not be President after January 2009, neither will Ezra Klein or any other progressive pundit, blogger or activist. More.

Via mcjoan.

In a recent post, I excoriated Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for her statement on not funding the Iraq Debacle. But as mcjoan notes, one has to wonder who is calling the shots in the House. After all, Pelosi voted against the war and championed John Murtha for the #2 slot in the House leadership. The question to ask – is Steny Hoyer the actual Dem leader in the House?

Internal tensions erupted yesterday among House Dem leaders over Rep. David Obey's threat to block war funding without withdrawal timetables and his suggestion of a war tax, The Hill reports. . . .  “It’s hard to believe you could pick a worse time to do something to divide the caucus than the day Democrats and Republicans come together on both an Iraq bill and in sending the children’s health bill to the president,” a Democratic leadership aide told the paper. “The timing of this announcement made no sense.”

I'm told, however, that there's a bit more to these tensions than meet the eye. House insiders say they think that this anonymous dumping on Obey came from the office of House Dem leader Steny Hoyer. Hoyer is a big proponent of the new House Iraq bill being sponsored by Dem Rep. Neil Abercrombie that was voted on yesterday and passed overwhelmingly. Because this measure lacks a binding withdrawal timetable, others in leadership — like Pelosi — are cool to the idea, insiders point out.

. . . “The dumping on Obey likely came from Hoyer, who was much more enthusiastic about the moderate — read: toothless — Ambercrombie legislation than the rest of leadership is,” a House insider tells me.

Steny Hoyer, like Rahm Emanuel, has been awful on Iraq and obviously he seeks to torpedo the not funding without a timeline idea. It looks like he and Rahm Emanuel are the problem.

Joining the Idiot Liberals, and separating himself from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-WI) promised to not forward any bill from his committee that funds the Iraq War without a date certain to end it:

“I would be more than willing to report out a supplemental meeting the President’s request if that request were made in support of a change in policy that would do three things.

— “Establish as a goal the end of U.S. involvement in combat operations by January of 2009.”

— “Ensure that troops would have adequate time at home between deployments as outlined in the Murtha and Webb amendments.”

— “Demonstrate a determination to engage in an intensive, broad scale diplomatic offensive involving other countries in the region.”

“But this policy does not do that. It simply borrows almost $200 billion to give to the Departments of State, Defense, Energy, and Justice with no change in sight.

“As Chairman of the Appropriations Committee I have absolutely no intention of reporting out of Committee anytime in this session of Congress any such request that simply serves to continue the status quo.”

Not funding after a date certain. Good idea Congressman.  Welcome to the fight. We “Idiot Liberals” have been waiting on you for the past seven months.