Dems Pass Iraq Timetable
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Legislation, WarWASHINGTON – A sharply divided House voted Friday to order
President Bush to bring combat troops home from Iraq next year, a victory for Democrats in an epic war-powers struggle and Congress’ boldest challenge yet to the administration’s policy.Ignoring a White House veto threat, lawmakers voted 218-212, mostly along party lines, for a binding war spending bill requiring that combat operations cease before September 2008, or earlier if the Iraqi government does not meet certain requirements. Democrats said it was time to heed the mandate of their election sweep last November, which gave them control of Congress. [...]
Voting for the bill were 216 Democrats and two Republicans � Wayne Gilchrest (news, bio, voting record) of Maryland and Walter Jones (news, bio, voting record) of North Carolina. Of the 212 members who opposed the bill, 198 were Republicans and 14 were Democrats.
Here’s the Republican response…
“Approval of it means we vote to abandon Iraq at an arbitrary time no matter the situation, said Republican Rep. Ted Poe (news, bio, voting record). It’s also “loaded with squealing pork that has nothing to do with our troops or the war,” added Poe, R-Texas, referring to the billions of dollars added to the bill to fund domestic programs and attract votes.
The pork is the thing I have a problem with. Can’t we have a clean bill people?
I will say this, Americans don’t like this war. The majority are sick of being mired down in Iraq, they feel they’ve been misled and they’re essentially done. And perhaps we can agree that November was much more of a “mandate” than Bush’s second election victory. Sure, a slim majority, but it was a big FU to the POTU. And yes, I’m in favor of getting us out of there sooner rather than later. It’s time for them to work through the details and for us to focus stateside.
However, is this the best bill? Nope. Will it pass the Senate? Not a chance. They need 60 votes and that ain’t gonna happen. In fact, the Senate is already drawing up their own bill…
Across the Capitol, the Senate planned to debate as early as Monday legislation that also calls for a troop withdrawal â€â€? and has also drawn a Bush veto threat.That $122 billion measure would require that Bush begin bringing home an unspecified number of troops within four months with the goal of getting all combat troops out by March 31, 2008. Unlike the House bill’s 2008 date, the Senate deadline is not a firm requirement.
I think the Senate measure is more realistic, but Dems have finally delivered on their promise of trying to get us out of Iraq. It has no chance of becoming law, but maybe that’s not the point…
This entry was posted on Friday, March 23rd, 2007 and is filed under Legislation, War. 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.
March 23rd, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Neither proposal has a chance of becoming law, but at least People will be on the record on where they stand. Some of them have been bought with the pork; the voters in those states need to pay attention. I’m referring to the non peanut & spinach growers, I mean. And the war goes on. And the funding still will not be approved. And so do the returning wounded. The guys on the ground get shafted. None of this is new.
March 23rd, 2007 at 9:03 pm
This is great. it has cemented the Democratic Party’s status as anti-military and defeatist. The Democrats want us to return to the glorious days of post-Vietnam Jimmy Carter America.
Democrats can try to spin all they want, but I’m glad that Americans are much smarter than what Washington pols think they are. And you gotta love the polling — Americans are not anti-war — they’re not happy how the war is being managed, which is completely different.
Only the radical libs can misinterpret those polls — they’re obviously reading in what they want to read.