California Conservative

Much like the French, Democrats in Washington have started waving the white flag on Iraq:

The Senate will not stop paying for the Iraq war or relent from insisting that President Bush keep pressing the Baghdad government for a negotiated end to the violence, a top Democrat said Sunday. Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, the Senate Armed Service Committee chairman, took issue with an effort by Majority Leader Harry Reid to limit war spending after March 2008 as a way to end U.S. involvement.

“We’re not going to vote to cut funding, period,” Levin said. “But what we should do, and we’re going to do, is continue to press this president to put some pressure on the Iraqi leaders to reach a political settlement.”

In other words, they’ve decided that pushing defeatist or restrictive legislation is a loser. I knew that a month ago. All their bluster meant nothing. I wonder if they didn’t do it this way just so they wouldn’t have to face supporters during their week long Easter break. It makes alot of sense when you realize that funding the troops will be ancient history when their Memorial Day recess comes.

Reid, (D-NV), said last week that if Bush rejects the Democrats’ legislation, he would join with Sen. Russ Feingold, (D-WI), one of the party’s most liberal members who has long called to end the war by denying funding for it. Reid’s latest proposal would give the president one year to get troops out, ending funding for combat operations after March 31, 2008.

“We can keep the benchmarks part of the bill without saying that the troops must begin to come back within four months,” Levin said. “If that doesn’t work and the president vetoes because of that, and he will, then that part of it is removed, because we’re going to fund the troops. And what we will leave will be benchmarks, for instance, which would require the president to certify to the American people if the Iraqis are meeting the benchmarks for political settlement, which they, the Iraqi leaders, have set for themselves,” he said.

I’ve said before that the Democrats were a House (and Senate) divided. I won’t be the least bit surprised to see moonbats like Russ Feingold, Barbara Boxer and Bernie Sanders whine about a clean supplemental. My thoughts on that are simple: WHATEVER!!! I don’t care about the whining. I just want the Defeatocrats to give the Petraeus Offensive time enough to defeat the terrorists.

Sen. Jon Kyl, (R-AZ), said it is unacceptable to set a goal and timetable for withdrawing the troops. He said lawmakers who support that are basing it on a false notion that the Iraqis are not listening to the United States. “I was over there about a month ago. We saw the reaction of the Iraqis. They are cooperating with us. So that’s old news that they’re not cooperating. That’s one of the reasons this new surge strategy is working,” he said.

The movement isn’t much but Democrats are slowly being forced to change their talking points. They’ve been talking about how President Bush had to change direction and that we’re stuck in a civil war. As violence decreased, the Democrats were forced to change their talking points. Sunday’s op-ed by John McCain can’t help Reid and Co. sell their defeatism, either.

Technorati Tags: Carl Levin, Harry Reid, Russ Feingold, Barbara Boxer, Defeatocrats, Iraq War, David Petraeus, Jon Kyl, John McCain, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 8th, 2007 at 11:59 pm and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Election 2008, Iraq, Military, W. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.