Bush’s Statement On The House Vote
A clearly angry President George W. Bush laid into the House Democrats today, and he was absolutely right to do [all points of emphasis mine]:
Here in Washington, members of both parties recognize that our most solemn responsibility is to support our troops in the war on terror. Yet, today, a narrow majority in the House of Representatives abdicated its responsibility by passing a war spending bill that has no chance of becoming law, and brings us no closer to getting our troops the resources they need to do their job.
The purpose of the emergency war spending bill I requested was to provide our troops with vital funding. Instead, Democrats in the House, in an act of political theater, voted to substitute their judgment for that of our military commanders on the ground in Iraq. They set rigid restrictions that will require an army of lawyers to interpret. They set an arbitrary date for withdrawal without regard for conditions on the ground. And they tacked on billions for pet projects that have nothing to do with winning the war on terror. This bill has too much pork, too many conditions and an artificial timetable for withdrawal.
As I have made clear for weeks, I will veto it if it comes to my desk. And because the vote in the House was so close, it is clear that my veto would be sustained. Today’s action in the House does only one thing: it delays the delivering of vital resources for our troops.
…[T]o score political points, the Democratic majority in the House has shown it is willing to undermine the gains our troops are making on the ground.
Democrats want to make clear that they oppose the war in Iraq. They have made their point. For some, that is not enough. These Democrats believe that the longer they can delay funding for our troops, the more likely they are to force me to accept restrictions on our commanders, an artificial timetable for withdrawal, and their pet spending projects. This is not going to happen.
Pull the funding or get on with other business. It’s as simple as that…
Um, I believe that’s what they did. They offered him his funding, but he has to make a compromise to do it. Sad thing is, it’s Big Bad Bush who’s gonna do the denying of the funds to the troops.
Sure, give up his constitutional role as commander in chief to get his funding, what a deal – that’s not compromise, it’s blackmail…
The bill that passes the Seante and the House concurs with will not have the deadline nor nearly any of the unrelated pork.
Assume I’m wrong and it does and the President vetos. The same day he sends up another appropriation request, what happens then Fargus?
Well, I say hooray for Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress. It’s the first sensible thing Congress has done since the disaster in Iraq started. As for Bush’s speech: it’s about what we have come to expect from him.
Bush is shocked — shocked! — that there is pork in an appropriations bill. Oh, please.
His assertion that Democrats “voted to substitute their judgment for that of our military commanders” conveniently ignores that fact that Bush has ignored the judgment of military commanders all along, starting with Eric Shinseiki and up to the present, when he shook up the military command in Iraq to install someone who would back the surge (Patreus). However, the Democrats are not voting to substitute their judgment for military commanders: they are voting to substitute their judgment for that of the President.
The fact is that for all of the blather about “winning” and “staying until the job is done,” the administration has never publicly defined what winning is or how it intends to achieve it. Hence we get ever deeper into this war without end, fought on phony premises, and whose consequences continue to get worse and worse. Bush is content to kick the can to the next administration and let them get us out of this mess. The administration doesn’t have much of a plan for Iraq — hooray for the Democrats, who at least are trying to find a way to end this disaster.
His accusation of Democratic “political theater” is more than a little ironic for a speech which used veterans as props. (And as for political theater: Bush is the first President in recent memory who has refused to attend military funerals. Why? Because it creates unfavorable political theater. Hence you have seen Bush and Cheney speak at army bases and VFW halls, but never at a military funeral. For people who are so quick to lecture others about supporting the troops, when the choice comes between paying respects and an unflattering photo op, they unhesitatingly choose politics over substance).
As for “delaying funding for our troops:” there would not be a supplemental bill in the first place if the adminsitration were honest in its budgeting for the war. In each year since we invaded Iraq, the funds which went for Iraq in the annual budget fell far short of what was required. The administration went to Congress every year when — guess what? — things weren’t as rosy as they predicted, and they need another hundred billion or so to keep the war effort going until the next annual budget. Needless to say, in the 2006 election year it was manifestly evident that the war wasn’t going to end any time soon, but nonetheless they lowballed the budgeted amount by roughly $100 billion. Now that there is a Democratic Congress which demands accurate budgeting for the war, this dog no longer hunts. However, this is conveniently ignored by Bush, who is happy to blame the Democrats for insufficient funding for the war effort, when honest budgeting would have prevented this issue from arising in the first place.
Peter, it’s clear you’ve given up on the war.
So I hope you won’t be ‘shocked, shocked, I say’ when I call you and the Democrats defeatists.
Sorry, my friend, but this bill was pork-laden crap.
That you would defend it is more than a little disappointing. You really should start reading another newspaper…
1) Dictionary.com defines defeatist as “a person who surrenders easily or is subject to defeatism”.
It defines realist as “a person who tends to view or represent things as they really are.”
Your implication is that we are bound to stay in Iraq in perpetuity in order to avoid defeatism. Absent Congressional intervention, the day Bush leaves office he will still be telling us that we can “get the job done” if we have the “resolve” to do it. After four years of continuing and escalating chaos, we’re well past the point where it because obvious that Iraq is a war which will never be won, even using a very loose standard of victory. This is obvious to the ISG, the American people, and the rest of the world. This is the mark of realism, not defeatism.
2) Most of the non-defense spending is comprised of appropriations which the Republican Congress did not take up in its last session. To be sure, some of it is completely irrelevant and included to win votes. That is how appropriations bills get passed, and deal making is how laws get passed. This issue is a side-show, however. The important thing is that for quite some time, a majority of Americans have recognized that the war is a mistake and we should extricate ourselves from it. Now a majority of Congress has gotten on board. About half of the Senate is aligned. Nothing happens at once: at some point, the will of the people will manifest itself and we will start drawing an end to this sorry chapter of American history.
became, not because
I’ll rephrase.
“Assume I’m wrong and it does and the President vetos. The same day he sends up another appropriation request, what happens then Peter?
Peter,
You have it all wrong, the Democrats have backed themselves into a political corner which mere political posturing will not get them out of.
First, they ran on a cut-n-run platform, but have only attempted to act in a non-binding fashion – all-the-while fiscally supporting the initial phase of the possibly successful “surge” – which has only maintained the appearance of pulling out & has produced nothing more than angering their base for accomplishing nothing.
Second, by having to add pork to garner votes, they have shown their base & their political opponents how weak, as a group, they really are. Because if they had the full support of the American people, like they claim, they wouldn’t need to bribe to get votes or have Code Pink tormenting their leadership.
Third, by pressing for votes on a Bill that will be vetoed, they have now made their freshman Representatives vulnerable to attacks in most Red states or politically moderate areas. Added to the fact they haven’t accomplished a mere percentage of what they promised for the first 100 hours, any opponent will have tons of political ammunition to use in up coming elections, which will translate into either a distancing from Pelosi or possibly defeat in much needed areas of the country.
Fourth, if something providing the funding isn’t passed, President Bush will go on television & simply state he asked for funding for the troops & that the Pelosi lead cabal wouldn’t provide it unless unrelated “ear-marks” were attached.
The American people, regardless of their love or hate for this war, generally do want the troops funded/supported & mostly recognize that full withdrawal or time-tables won’t actually help & may actually make the situation overseas & throughout the region more unstable. The US Generals have already publicly released their plans to cover the finances for the continued surge in Iraq & support in Afghanistan by cutting back training & supplying domestically, regardless of whether the funding is provided or not. Do the Democrats really want troops to be in harm’s way & have the Democratic controlled Congress to be responsible for their lack of funding? No amount of pre-disposed media support can cover that, since the story is too important to be spun by the major networks or newspapers completely.
Pelosi & her gang have not only backed themselves into a place where they not only anger their base, but will look completely incompetent & unsupportive to a war they have already authorized & funded in the past. They can continue to press Bills that will never have enough votes to over-ride a veto, but eventually they will have to do more than appear like making a decision regarding the war – other than trying to play both sides & waiting to see who controls the Executive Branch in 2008.
This next Presidential Election, like 2004, will mostly be about the War in Iraq & common sense dictates that the American voter will probably support candidates that plan on finishing it & supporting the troops on the ground rather than those that spent 2 full sessions of Congress generating meaningless, non-binding, doomed to fail Bills for retreat they could barely pass in the first place.
If anyone should be celebrating this barely passed Bill in the House, it’s the Bush Administration, because their political opponents have once again not only shot themselves in the foot, but provided another deluge of political ammunition for an eventful loss of the Executive Branch in 2008. The two Democratic front runners consist of a Senator who supported the War before she was against it or an inexperienced Senator who is solely against it. Coupled w/ the lack-luster success delivered by Reid & Pelosi, the Democratic controlled Congress may indeed be the biggest political liability to victory for either & the means for a political re-grouping of the Republicans.
To Bob: what happens if/when Bush vetoes the bill? Well, then you might see the democratic process at work. You can go back to the Federalist Papers and see what Madison and Jefferson wrote about factions. The faction which is no longer willing to have American troops referee a civil war has enough votes to pass a bill in the House to bring the troops home. They have about half of the votes in the Senate: possibly enough to pass a bill but not enough to sustain a veto. The Constitution gives Congress the right to pass appropriations, and George Bush is not the Decider here. There will be a negotiation among the various factions and some sort of compromise will be reached. That is what democracy is all about. Or have you forgotten that during six years of rubber stamp Congresses?
To PMain: so if “the American voter will probably support candidates that plan on finishing it & supporting the troops on the ground,” that’s why the Democrats pitched a shut-out last year?
Although, I think all of you make some good points,especially you PMaine, we must discuss or at least consider 2 very important arguments. #1 It was Bill Clinton, and the democrats that down-size our military that was once the most powerful military second to non in the world. It was also under Clinton and the Democrats watch that they let their guards down and became lax on foreign policy even though the CIA issued severial reports cautioning against such lax policies, and warning that we should be ever vigilant against groups like those headed and funded by BIN LADEN. Well they discarded those warnings and look at what took place on 9/11 right here on OUR SOIL. Immediately afterwards it was the Democrats that wanted to turn the other cheek and seek deploymancy, but the President and the Military Commander IN Chief stood up and had the guts to go to war based on the information he was given by the intelligence world however(flawed or inaccurate it may have been). I spent 14 years active duty in the Marines being discharged on 15 Dec. 2006 and now serve with a Marines reserve unit. I have spent 2 tours in Iraq, and have seen the progress made there, but you will never see or hear about it in the main stream media.
#2 You hear the Democrates and their followers on the media making statements like its time to bring our troops home, or we can’t win, but more recently it was a democrate that said we should’nt waste another ounce of American Blood in Iraq. Well I am sorry but it hurts me to my heart and I find it repulsive that the American people don’t have faith in me or the rest of us that volunteered to serve our county and to do our job and protect your freedoms and democracy. If you polled 1000 military personnel in Iraq right now I’d bet less than 1% would say we shouldn’t be there. War is always ugly and dreaded, but it is a neccesary evil to ensure and preserve democracy. The war should be conducted by the commanders in the field and their advisors, not some politican in washington who is trying to tack on 2 billion dollars in subsidies for spinach growers. If these represenatives that are suspose to be representing the American taxpayers want money for spinach or any other pet projects, then let them request it as a stand alone bill and and let it stand for a vote by our legislators, and not hide it in a request for military funding.