Posted on 05/05/2007 4:34:31 PM PDT by captjanaway
With New Clout, Antiwar Groups Push Democrats By MICHAEL LUO WASHINGTON, May 4 — Every morning, representatives from a cluster of antiwar groups gather for a conference call with Democratic leadership staff members in the House and the Senate.
Shortly after, in a cramped meeting room here, they convene for a call with organizers across the country. They hash out plans for rallies. They sketch out talking points for “rapid response” news conferences. They discuss polls they have conducted in several dozen crucial Congressional districts and states across the country.
Over the last four months, the Iraq deliberations in Congress have lurched from a purely symbolic resolution rebuking the president’s strategy to timetables for the withdrawal of American troops. Behind the scenes, an elaborate political operation, organized by a coalition of antiwar groups and fine-tuned to wrestle members of Congress into place one by one, has helped nudge the debate forward.
But there are tensions in the relationship between the groups, which banded together earlier this year under the umbrella of Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, and the Democratic leadership. The fissures could be magnified in coming weeks as the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, struggle to cobble together a strategy after President Bush’s veto of the $124 billion Iraq spending bill that tied the money to a timetable for withdrawal.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Chickens coming home to roost. It would be funny is consequences weren’t so tragic.
Rush said that the Democrats lie about who they are, and get elected pretending they are something they aren’t.
Now that they are in power, what to do? If they start acting on the agenda of their base, the middle of the road types they decieved to get where they are will turn against them.
New clout? The Iraq withdrawl was defeated. What frig'n clout?
They are not as popular, among voters, as they think they are.
The Democrats are going to have to jettison them eventually. The majority of Americans may be dissatisfied with the war progress (mainly because it isn’t being reported) but most Americas don’t support cutting and running and bringing Al-Qaeda back home which is exactly what will happen. Plus it will cause the ranks of Al-Qaeda to swell as it uses the retreat to gain more legitimacy. Saudi Arabia will be at greater risk as will all our allies in that area. This should be the response to anyone suggesting we disengage the middle east which is exactly what we’d be doing. This is not like Vietnam. Al-Qaeda has a real target and that is the western world. Leaving Iraq may not leave it in civil war but it will leave us as a wounded target.
I wouldn’t be surprised that if we did indeed start withdrawing troops that once the bulk of the troops our home it would be the perfect time to trigger the operation they have in place here in America. They will want to use their victory momentum.
Exactly, but as you know facts and reality do not matter for the left wing lunatics.
He is watching the Dems. He says that a pull out will deprive Al qaeda of the opportunity to kill more U.S. Soldiers.
Hear that Nancy? Al qaeda agrees with you. You do understand that means what you are doing is evil, right?
If they hadn't had a fair amount of clout, it would never have passed, at least in the form it did. True they didn't have enough clout to override the veto, but they may still have enough to keep the supplemental from passing without some "withdrawal" provisions.
Even if they never pass a bill, they win. The President can not spend money they don't appropriate. He'll have to strip major hunks off of the rest of the military to fund the war effort. He'd already done some of that, but if a supplemental doesn't pass, and fairly soon, we ain't seen nothing yet.
They won't.
They will just keep pushing until we can no longer get ME oil, create a big mess because of it, and then create a bigger mess by trying to fix the 1st mess they created and then blame it on Republicans for getting us into such a mess.
Then they will plead innocence when we are attacked again and the whole cycle will start over.
With all do respect, what type of hallucinogenics are you on?
These moon bats are the only solid support ($$$$$$) the wing nut left democrats have.
No way are they telling Soros to hit the road.
The next time we are attacked they’d better be ready for interment camps.
9% of the voters will destroy the Dem Party by 2008. I like it!
The Iraq withdrawal was NOT defeated, and the President scored NO victory. The President merely rejected an appropriation to fight the war tied to a mandate to surrender it. Unless the Congress actively passes something better, Bush can continue to fight the war but cannot spend money on salaries, rations, munitions, fuel, medicine, armor, equipment, supplies, or anything else he may find rather useful for victory. On the present track, the President will abandon the troops in Iraq, starve their families at home, sever their supply lines, and end medical evacuations of the wounded.
Any American victory then depends on the ability of the troops to survive until the political winds at home turn more in their favor, something virtually certain not to happen, whatever the circumstances, until January 2009. But even then, we ABSOLUTELY MUST keep the Presidency, not an easy feat while losing a war before the standards of the media empowered to discern the Truth.
Congress also poses a more insidious threat: they can insert the surrender clause cryptically and stealthily into other gargantuan, irrelevant, and largely acceptable legislation—or even perhaps insert it into an unseen conference report—and hope that the President does not see it before he signs such legislation. They also have the power to impeach and convict the president and vice-president of the United States at will.
Solution: Bush should VETO any and all legislation that Congress passes—provided that the Republicans in the House will sustain such veto—until and unless the Congress first funds the troops without mandating surrender.
It passed with $20 billion worth of pure pork added to it to make it palatable. It would never passed simply on the base of the “anti war movement’s clout”. The Democrat leadership simply bought the votes to get it passed.
This guy needs to stick to his hobby of drinking the bong water and give up his misguided notion that he is any sort of “political analysis”. Propagandist yes. Critical Thinker? Not even close
Solution: Bush should VETO any and all legislation that Congress passes—provided that the Republicans in the House will sustain such veto—until and unless the Congress first funds the troops without mandating surrender.
WALLACE: Let's start with this search for a compromise on Iraq war funding.
The Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, as well as your number two man in the House, Roy Blunt, are both talking about attaching this idea of political benchmarks to a spending bill with the possibility of cutting off not military aid, but foreign aid, if the Iraqi politicians fail to meet these political benchmarks.
Could you support that?
BOEHNER: I don't know. I'm clearly for benchmarks. I had a benchmark proposal I introduced in January with a number of my colleagues that laid out benchmarks.
snip
WALLACE: So you really think September is about the point at which members' patience will wear out?
BOEHNER: Well, I think this fall, people are going to want to assess how well is the plan working. Are there changes necessary.
And I think the Bush administration on a monthly basis will be looking at how is the plan working, are there changes necessary to the plan.
At the end of the day, Chris, Iraq is not about a civil war. Iraq is about Al Qaeda and 76 other terrorist groups operating there, and all of their effort is aimed at defeating the United States.
Earlier on your program, you had — Senator Dodd talked about this being a civil war. It is not a civil war. There is some sectarian violence between the Sunni and Shia, most of it being stirred up by the Iranians.
But it's Al Qaeda and their affiliates who have made Iraq the central front in their war with us. And we have to remember they started this, not us.
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