District of Bizarro VIII: Smoke and Mirrors

Its time for smoke in the District as Congress faces gut check time on the Iraq War. Despite peace marches, memorial vigils, antiwar petitions, state legislature resolutions calling for withdrawal and an election the war party loss, progressive leaders in Congress seem bent on an blaming the Republicans, verbalizing frustration, and doing nothing about the "slow bleed" of American military intervention in the Iraq Civil War. The regime's purge of prosecutors is providing media diversion and cover for their hand wringing timidity. The Pelosi-Murtha bill is wimpish since it only calls for a redeployment by March 2008. The real deal is the the Lee Amendment to the pending $93 billion supplemental appropriation for the war. The Charlatan cannot fight the war without money and he doesn't have the votes to block a veto override. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) wants to dedicate more money only to withdrawal and force protection. [See amendment text here.] While allowing a fully funded wind down of American involvement, the amendment requires all troops and contractors to exit the country by the end of this year. Its very doubtful that the amendment will pass the House because so many Democrats are loath to take a strong anti war stance just in case the ludicrous adventure succeeds before the 2008 election. If only the courage of Congress members matched that of our soldiers fighting a lost cause. Its no wonder Congress' public approval rating is dropping.
Weekend Update: Barbara Lee and her liberal colleagues in the House are signing on the leadership's weaker bill in an effort to get some kind of endgame going in Iraq. There simply are not enough votes to support decisive action ending the failed occupation of Iraq. In the Senate, the Appropriations Committee under the chairmanship of octogenarian Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) (he is looking like Yoda more and more) passed out a $121.6 billion defense spending bill that includes language requiring the president to begin a phased withdrawal within 120 days of passage. That language will not survive since the Senate is locked up by the Republicans' filibuster of any legislation limiting the Charlatan's war making abilities. We are now spending more on wars and the military than we did in WWII. Fine mess the authorities have us in, Ollie.
Latest: The House passed a supplemental war funding bill 218-214. The bill calls for withdrawal from Iraq by August 2008. Fourteen progressive Democrats voted against it since the bill allows the Charlatan to continue the war into next year. The anti-war effort now passes to the Senate. If the withdrawal provision survives Congress the Charlatan will most certainly veto it. The legislators will then be exposed to vilification as "troop haters", "traitors", "defeatist" and "unpatriotic" by the war mongers if they do not override his veto and give him more money for war. Speaker Pelosi got support from MoveOn.org the net roots activist organization. After taking an online survey of its members, it endorsed the more moderate spending bill which then passed. The organization and its founder Eli Pariser have been criticised on the left for not supporting the more aggressive Out of Iraq Caucus' amendment to the spending bill introduced by Barbara Lee (D-CA). According to Pariser 85% of the organization's members supported backing the Pelosi-Murtha, bill but no other alternative--such as the Lee Amendment-- was presented to members for consideration. (I also voted for the Pelosi-Murtha bill knowing no other option would pass muster with conservative Democratic Representatives). One critic called the MoveOn email survey a "Soviet ballot". The pressure for a more aggressive time table would have been greater if the 3.2 million member group had voted to back the Lee Amendment. But Pariser responds that the form of the question was dictated by the the parliamentary realities and the need to build toward a filibuster proof majority against the Charlatan's war on Iraq. According to some in the peace coalition, MoveOn organizers enjoy greater access to legislators than they do and they resent their apparent acceptance by 'mainstream' politicians wary of being identified with 'fringe' elements. That's too bad for those timid politicians because the so-called fringe now represents the position on Iraq of a substantial majority of Americans .