Murtha’s Upset: Congress Won’t Vote For Surrender Before August Break
Life is good. That’s my take anytime I hear the House Democratic leadership refuses to vote on a John Murtha ‘defeat through retreat’ bill.
Details of the demise of Murtha’s amendment are still murky, but there are indications that House leadership had a hand in it. As chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Murtha had announced his plans to seek an amendment on the floor demanding that withdrawal of troops begin in 60 days, but not put a “date certain” for the withdrawal to be completed.
Republican opponents of withdrawal amendments often say they won’t support an “artificial timetable” for withdrawal. Murtha said his language was intended to remove that reasoning and see if Republicans still supported the administration. He also questioned whether troops can be withdrawn.
Murtha does not appear to have consulted with House progressives or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Asked if he’d talked with the Speaker at the time his committee sent the defense spending bill to the floor last week, Murtha replied, “She’s always supported me before.”
What Murtha doesn’t understand is that he’s expendable. Frankly, he’s pretty much outlived his usefulness to Ms. Pelosi. She’s now the speaker. Murtha helped make that a reality. Now that she’s the Speaker, he isn’t as important. When they were trying to stop the war, he was an important part of the team. Now that they’ve caving into President Bush’s demands, his usefulness has pretty much disintegrated.
As I wrote here, Murtha’s legislation was DOA anyway. The bigger news to me is that (a) Murtha’s legislation didn’t have Ms. Pelosi’s blessing and (b) Ms. Pelosi undermined Murtha’s legislation.
I’d doubt that these events sit well with the Nutroots.
The amendment was discussed during Monday night’s leadership meeting, though no final decision was made. When votes concluded Monday night, Murtha left the floor in an angry mood. The often-talkative cardinal brushed off a reporter, saying, “I don’t want to answer any questions.”
Murtha met with Lee, Waters and Woolsey Tuesday morning. Afterward, Waters and Woolsey said the Murtha amendment would not come up this week. That was later confirmed by Democratic aides, who added that Abercrombie-Tanner also had been nixed.
It sounds like there’s no joy in Murthaville these days. It breaks my heart to hear Rep. Murtha sounding so upset.
Technorati Tags: John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi, Out Of Iraq Caucus, Maxine Waters, Lynn Woolsey, Barbara Lee, Defeatocrats
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Judging by the news, the House changed its mind again. Apparently the bug-out bill is on its way to the Senate. CBS News reports that this is “the first binding congressional challenge to Bush’s handling of the conflict now in its fifth year.”
I don’t agree with CBS’s tone, or their assumptions, but it does look like the bill passed.
Somehow, I don’t feel safer.