Democrats Vow to Take On Bush
[Guest post by DRJ]
Using their best Mommy language, Democrats complained that President Bush was acting like a bully and vowed to take away his allowance for Iraq:
“Democrats who lead Congress likened President George W. Bush on Thursday to a bully on Iraq war policy and vowed to spend no more on combat without a deadline for bringing U.S. troops home.
“He damn sure is not entitled to having this money given to him just with a blank check,” Sen. Harry Reid, the Democrats’ Senate leader, told reporters. “Americans need someone fighting for them taking on this bully we have in the White House,” he said.”
I’m surprised the Democrats didn’t try to give President Bush a time-out. I guess they’ll have to wait until January 2009.
– DRJ
The bullies reside in the Democrat party. Now, I question the Patriotism of the Democrats in Congress when they refuse to supply food, munitions, and pay to the troops in a combat zone.
Comment by PCD — 11/15/2007 @ 12:11 pm
I’m just surprised none of them are in Olympia WA pouring concrete over the train tracks to “Protest”.
Comment by Al — 11/15/2007 @ 12:25 pm
I have been hoping that the Dems would work up the stones to do this. Finally, they will put their true face out in front of the American people, for all to see.
Comment by JD — 11/15/2007 @ 12:26 pm
Just too funny for words!
Comment by daleyrocks — 11/15/2007 @ 12:32 pm
This should make for high comedy…
Comment by Scott Jacobs — 11/15/2007 @ 12:37 pm
What’s the “mommy language”? Calling Bush a bully?
Comment by Moops — 11/15/2007 @ 1:01 pm
Uh-oh, look out! Dingy Harry means business this time!
But what does that mean?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aY.CHD.pOkqw&refer=us
Screw Iraq Slumber Party Part II, now we get to have Iraq Weekend Spectacular! Maybe Dingy Harry can bring a barbecue into the Senate, wear an apron, and cook up Iraq-shaped burgers and steaks for anyone who wants one. No hot dogs, though. Dingy Harry only allows one weenie inside a room at a time, and that’s him.
Comment by chaos — 11/15/2007 @ 1:06 pm
Moops,
Mommy language is calling Bush a bully and threatening to take away the “money given to him.” As you know, money is appropriated by Congress for government use and it’s not given to the President. In fact, the article reports the Army, especially, will need funds in early 2008.
Comment by DRJ — 11/15/2007 @ 1:11 pm
How long, or Lord, how long before enough of the American people take note of the children running the asylum and finally put an end to it? Well, obviously not soon enough. The childish behavior of these folks is enough for me to want to reinstate the paddle of olden times.
Comment by Sue — 11/15/2007 @ 1:34 pm
Nancy Reid and Harry Pelosi are shooting their party’s 2008 chances in the foot, repeatedly.
If you don’t know that the Nutroots and 527s aren’t pissed off at the Most Inept Congressional Leaders Ever, they are. Really pissed.
This is essentially a replay of the stand-off in May. Remember that? When the Dems said “We aren’t going to pass a war-funding bill without withdrawal language.”
They passed a bill with withdrawal language.
Bush said, “Uh… no.” Vetoed.
Democrats proceeded to curl into a collective ball and passed the exact same bill… minus the withdrawal language.
And that was when the President had nothing he could say in his defense. There was no drastic drop in violence in Iraq yet. Most of the brigades that were being sent to Iraq for the surge hadn’t arrived yet and wouldn’t until the middle of June. Active-duty generals weren’t lining up four deep to make positive comments about the war to the media the way they are now.
Bush won then. Now the news is filled with tales of deaths down, attacks down, tips and weapons caches found way up. Nancy’s surrender bill passed 218-203. This spring, one of the more heavily media-covered surrender bills passed by the same margin. In six months Nancy and Harry have managed to bring the Congress NO CLOSER AT ALL to “ending the war.”
This creates a huge problem for the Democratic Party. Two, actually. One very real, one potential. The potential problem is that things in Iraq progress so much in the next six months to a year that the issue actually becomes a negative for them. That’s not likely, but it could happen. The real problem is Hillary Clinton. She isn’t Bush Light on Iraq. She’s Bush Medium. At best. More like Bush 151. If she wins, I firmly believe that Hillary would announce a withdrawal timeline so flexible that she could keep as many troops in Iraq as long as she felt like. Whatever else you can say about Bill Clinton, after Rwanda happened he was more than willing to pound the hell out of people with the US military. Slobo, Saddam. Sure he dropped the ball on Osama, but everybody did. Sure he was a slug as a man, but he didn’t sap the morale of the nation and let the military get semi-decrepit like Carter. I say all that about Bill because I don’t see Hillary implementing a foreign policy that Bill Clinton would largely disagree with, and Bill Clinton had, and has, I think, a pro-American view of things when he thinks about international relations. Bill Clinton’s fun and games in Yugoslavia and bellicose rhetoric on Iraq paved the way for George Bush to go all the way. Rwanda deeply affected his view of foreign policy.
If Hillary Clinton becomes President I do not believe that there will be any real change in American foreign policy. There will be symbolic shifts – Guantanmo’s prison will be closed, for example, but we don’t need it anyway – but nothing substantive.
The Defeatists know this. If Hillary is the Democratic nominee and things keep going well in Iraq, there will be a lot of people who will not vote for the GOP in any case and also not for Hillary because of the war.
Not anyone in the GOP? Yes, because I’ve become convinced that Ron Paul isn’t a Republican. Apparently a lot of his funding comes from sources rather leftish on the political spectrum. And his supporters are openly advocating Democrats to switch voter registration to GOP or vote in open primaries for Ron Paul. He’s trying to hijack the Republican nomination process using money and voters who aren’t Republicans. At least that’s what I’ve read.
There is a lot of money and a lot of bodies who want out of Iraq, period, they do not give a damn what the other positions of the candidates are, if they want out of Iraq, vote for them; if they aren’t, don’t. Nothing that happens in Iraq in the next year will change their minds.
But if both major candidates have the same view on Iraq, and that view isn’t yours, and you’re a defeatist, what do you do?
You don’t vote. Or you write in someone’s name. If Ron Paul doesn’t win the GOP nomination (he won’t), and he doesn’t run as an Independent, watch his cult members talk about writing in the Great Dr. Paul’s name on Election Day. And I bet that Ron Paul will get a lot of write-in votes next year even if they don’t. Lot as in, possibly more than Nader in 2000. Possibly a lot more. If he runs as an Independent it’s assured. And who will that take votes from? Not the GOP candidate. It’ll take them from poor Hillary.
With Hillary as their candidate the Democrats face a real nightmare in 2008 when it comes to Iraq. I don’t care what the polls say, any Democrat who isn’t a Clinton robot has to be secretly wishing that Barack Obama manages to take advantage of Hillary’s recent stumbles and win a historical political upset.
MoveOn said they bought the Democratic Party, they owned it. 2008 will show if they do. Because if you can break something and get away with it, chances are you own it. The anti-war bloc can break the Democratic Party in 2008. And get away with it.
Comment by chaos — 11/15/2007 @ 1:51 pm
I see. You sure do see lots of mommies using the shorthand “given to him” to refer to money that is provided at the President’s request. Why, just the other day I saw a woman with a stroller on the subway and she told her kid “If you think this lollipop will be given to you without any timetables and goals for a drawdown of thumbsucking and measurable progress in the bedwetting arena, you’ve got another think coming.”
Just say you don’t like Harry Reid criticizing the President and leave it at that.
Comment by Moops — 11/15/2007 @ 1:54 pm
#9, Sue, ironic isn’t it – the children are running the asylum and they are the ones telling us,’its for the children’…
Time to connect the dots.
Comment by Dana — 11/15/2007 @ 1:58 pm
“Why, just the other day I saw a woman with a stroller on the subway and she told her kid “If you think this lollipop will be given to you without any timetables and goals for a drawdown of thumbsucking and measurable progress in the bedwetting arena, you’ve got another think coming.”
YOu saw Harry Reid’s mommy at the subway?
Comment by tmac — 11/15/2007 @ 2:17 pm
Yep. She ordered a 6-inch club with extra onions.
Comment by Moops — 11/15/2007 @ 2:25 pm
So she ordered the “Kucinich” special eh?
Comment by Lord Nazh — 11/15/2007 @ 2:44 pm
I’m surprised the Democrats didn’t try to give President Bush a time-out.
That seems to mostly be what they’ve been attempting so far.
I’ve become convinced that Ron Paul isn’t a Republican. Apparently a lot of his funding comes from sources rather leftish on the political spectrum. And his supporters are openly advocating Democrats to switch voter registration to GOP or vote in open primaries for Ron Paul. He’s trying to hijack the Republican nomination process using money and voters who aren’t Republicans. At least that’s what I’ve read.
I’m more or less on the left so take this with as much salt as you wish, but I think that’s only half-correct. Paul’s most diehard base has been the “paleo-libertarian” contingent centered around Lew Rockwell et. al. These guys have the anti-war position in common with (much of) the left, but that’s about it, and their premises for doing so tend to be very different. There’s “I’m against involvement in Iraq because I think it was entered under false pretenses” or “I’m against involvement in Iraq because I think it’s doing more harm than good,” and then there’s “I’m against involvement in Iraq because the Zionists flying the black UN helicopters on loan from the Federal Reserve are behind it.”
Paul is certainly drawing support from some parts of the left (it’s remarkable how many Ron Paul banners you’ll see out here in the San Francisco bay area), but it’s my suspicion that it’s essentially the same rationale for supporting Nader, or if you go back a bit farther, Ross Perot: the belief that both parties are essentially the same and the Crazy Outsider might just be onto something. (That neither Nader nor Paul are really outsiders is apparently beside the point; they have the language down and come across as sincerely believing what they’re saying.) I also have a suspicion that there are people on the left side of the aisle who’d like to see Paul succeed just to the point of “changing the debate,” but would have absolutely no intention of voting for him if he made it to the general election.
Not to take this wildly off topic or anything.
Ron Paul has become my current focal point of political bafflement.
Comment by Watts — 11/15/2007 @ 3:23 pm
Ah what party would have done this in WWII or any other war? Nuff said.
Comment by Thomas Jackson — 11/15/2007 @ 3:25 pm
Moops,
It’s funnier this way. Anyway, Reid started it. So there.
Comment by DRJ — 11/15/2007 @ 4:14 pm
Does anything stop private enterprise from donating the necessary supplies to the military?
Comment by Sean — 11/15/2007 @ 4:27 pm
Meanie-head…
Comment by Scott Jacobs — 11/15/2007 @ 4:27 pm
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071115/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq
Remember: they support the troops!
Comment by chaos — 11/15/2007 @ 4:57 pm
chaos – This stunt is likely to finally show exactly how little they support the troops. It is fairly obvious that their support only extends to lip service, but this stunt will have tangible effects that they will be responsible for.
Comment by JD — 11/15/2007 @ 5:37 pm
harry’s bitter because he never got picked up for dodgeball
Comment by the struggler — 11/15/2007 @ 5:59 pm
I particularly liked how Gen. Casey did not pull any punches today, especially with Sen. Gin & Tonic, (D-Chappaquiddick). I wish there was a principled opposition to President Bush, even if it was Republicans. Clearly, the Dems are not the principled opposition that many had hoped for.
Comment by JD — 11/15/2007 @ 6:04 pm
It would be a shame to lay-off all of those DoD civilians who happen to reside in the suburban counties of MD and VA with Dem Congresscritters…
Comment by Another Drew — 11/15/2007 @ 11:37 pm