White House rejects Democratic proposal on war funding

This is probably the least surprising political news of the week. The White House, in yet another amazing show of hubris and stubbornness, has rejected the Democrats' latest war funding proposal.

Anyone with a pulse who has even heard of the word Iraq can't be surprised by this latest development. President Bush has grown accustomed to a blank check since this war began, and it's pretty obvious he's not going to give it up without a fight.

However, clearly there are some cracks developing in Republican Congressional support. Last week, 11 Republicans went to the White House to let Bush know that he can't count on their support forever.

Now, September seems to be the buzz month du jour - we're promised if things aren't better by then, there will have to be a Plan B.

I don't think this administration has a Plan B. If it did, we would have seen it long ago, because Plan A certainly isn't working.

It doesn't take a political consultant to figure out that the only reason Republicans are even doing this is because there's an election coming up, and they need political cover to prevent a colossal disaster in the '08 election.

Bush has given in on benchmarks, but he remains firm on no timelines. He simply wants an infinite war, or at the very least, war until noon on January 20, 2009, so his precious legacy is protected. That way, Bush won't be the president who pulled our troops out of Iraq in defeat.

From today's New York Times:

Congressional Democrats and the White House remained at odds over a war spending measure on Friday after a crucial negotiating session ended with both sides expressing disappointment and accusing the other of being intractable.

Democrats said the White House chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, rejected their offer to eliminate non-Pentagon spending and give President Bush the authority to waive a timeline for withdrawal of troops from Iraq in return for their approval of about $95 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through Sept. 30.

"No - everything was no," said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, characterizing the response by White House officials and Republican leaders of the House and Senate who took part in the talks.

Republicans said they were caught by surprise by the Democratic posture in the meeting, in the offices of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, given that Mr. Bush has already vetoed one spending measure containing a withdrawal timeline and has made it clear that he will not accept such a proposal.

"The Democratic leaders did talk about having timelines for withdrawal that might be waivable," Mr. Bolten told reporters after the morning meeting, saying Democrats seemed dug in on the timeline issue. "We consider that to be not a significant distinction."

What I find breathtaking is that Bolten thinks that the president vetoing the first funding bill should have or would have signaled the end of Democratic opposition to the war. As if a veto takes away all Congressional opposition, and Democrats should simply tuck their tail between their legs and submit to Bush's will.

Not a chance. At least, not a chance if Democrats hope to remain in control of Congress beyond 2008.

I urge every one of you to call and/or e-mail your Congressional representatives and urge them to not cave to Bush on funding this war.

One other quick footnote to the funding - pretty funny how the U.S. Army still seems to be functioning. I remember a month ago, it was going to be the end of the Earth if the funding didn't get approved immediately. Well, the Army is still standing.

3,401 U.S. soldiers and counting...

Is there any end to this tragedy?

Photo from HuffPo