This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • Insanity strikes Presidential hopefuls

    “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”

    —Albert Einstein (also attributed to Ben Franklin sometimes)

    “If he vetoes it and sends it back, then we ought to send it back to him again…”

    –John Edwards

    Yes, that’s right, Democrats answer to the President’s veto is sending the same bill back, expecting different results. Some strategy, huh? Ya know why? Cuz that’s all they got. they spent a whole two years worth of political capital on getting this useless bill through their respective houses, knowing the President would veto it. They got nuthin’.

    So instead of “compromising” or engaging the President in discussion, they’re just going to send the same bill back. (Actually, I don’t know who Edwards is referring to as “we” – last I checked he had nothing to do with bill)

    As I said yesterday, I doubt they could wrangle up the votes to get a new bill sent to him as long as they have all of those stipulations. And since they loaded it up with pork to buy each other’s vote to get it through, the President has a perfect reason to veto it everytime it arrives on his desk.

    And Hillary invokes the “will of the American people” according to Stephan Dinan of the Washington Times;

       Mrs. Clinton said her campaign is conducting an online petition drive to urge Mr. Bush not to veto the bill. Presidential inaction would be the Democrats’ only hope of winning the face-off because they are nowhere near having the two-thirds majority in both houses needed to override a veto. In addition, more than 150 House Republicans have publicly pledged to back a Bush veto.
        “Mr. President, please work with us. Don’t veto the will of the American people,” Mrs. Clinton said.

    I think that’s real odd, actually – Harpie Clinton asking the President to “work with us” – everytime he works with the Democrats, he takes it right in the hip pocket. And where was this plea for cooperation while Democrats were writing the damn thing? It’s not like they didn’t know he was going to veto it.

    Since Clinton and Edwards love to govern by polls they should take a look at them;

       More voters are likely to blame Democrats in Congress if funds fail to reach the troops in time, Republican pollsters say. A poll conducted last week for the Republican National Committee showed that 50 percent of voters would blame Democrats compared with 40 percent who would blame the president. The survey also showed that 56 percent of voters support fully funding the Iraq war while 38 percent oppose full funding.

    Yikes! Geez, Hillary, where are your American people now?

    AP’s Jennifer Loven reports that Dingy Harry still thinks he has the support of the American people, too;

    Democrats, buoyed by recent Republican defections from Bush on Iraq, shot back that they are the ones pursuing effective solutions overseas in response to a national desire for change from his approach.

    “We are not going to allow the president to continue a failed policy in Iraq. We represent the American people’s vision on this failed war,” Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said at a ceremony for a new Nevada National Guard armory near Las Vegas. “We have said time and time again the troops will have everything they need.”

    Yeah, well, we don’t believe you, Harry, especially whe your rock star candidates say things like this;

    “We have to come back, and we have to say: All right, we will constrain you in a different way,” Mr. Obama said.
        He proposed that Congress pass short-term spending bills and let the administration know: “If you have not initiated the withdrawal at that point, we will put you on an even shorter leash.”

    How do you shorten the leash without strangling the troops? Everything you dipshits have touched turns to crap, how can the American people trust you on this?

  • The problem with Islam; the Left

    An excellent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal today by Tawfik Hamid entitled “The Trouble With Islam” actually should be entitled “The Trouble With Overeager Liberalism”;

    The grave predicament we face in the Islamic world is the virtual lack of approved, theologically rigorous interpretations of Islam that clearly challenge the abusive aspects of Shariah. Unlike Salafism, more liberal branches of Islam, such as Sufism, typically do not provide the essential theological base to nullify the cruel proclamations of their Salafist counterparts. And so, for more than 20 years I have been developing and working to establish a theologically-rigorous Islam that teaches peace.

    Yet it is ironic and discouraging that many non-Muslim, Western intellectuals — who unceasingly claim to support human rights — have become obstacles to reforming Islam. Political correctness among Westerners obstructs unambiguous criticism of Shariah’s inhumanity. They find socioeconomic or political excuses for Islamist terrorism such as poverty, colonialism, discrimination or the existence of Israel. What incentive is there for Muslims to demand reform when Western “progressives” pave the way for Islamist barbarity? Indeed, if the problem is not one of religious beliefs, it leaves one to wonder why Christians who live among Muslims under identical circumstances refrain from contributing to wide-scale, systematic campaigns of terror.

    Doctor Hamid has been trying to found a more peaceful version of Islam (which shouldn’t be that hard, relatively speaking) but is confounded by the Left’s inability to criticize anything that’s not Western in origin;

    Western appeasement of their Muslim communities has exacerbated the problem. During the four-month period after the publication of the Muhammad cartoons in a Danish magazine, there were comparatively few violent demonstrations by Muslims. Within a few days of the Danish magazine’s formal apology, riots erupted throughout the world. The apology had been perceived by Islamists as weakness and concession.

    Worst of all, perhaps, is the anti-Americanism among many Westerners. It is a resentment so strong, so deep-seated, so rooted in personal identity, that it has led many, consciously or unconsciously, to morally support America’s enemies.

    Funny, ain’t it? Here we are trying to free people from their masters yet we’re the bad guys. Personally, I could give two rat’s asses which prophet a person believes, or what their particular God tells them to do – until it starts infringing on my life, and that of my family. And that’s the basic problem – because the Left won’t get on board and start condemning these human rights abuses, Islam will continue to test the limits of what we’ll accept – until it’s too late.

    Dr. Hamid’s last line sounds like something I heard on South Park once about four years ago;

    Tolerance does not mean toleration of atrocities under the umbrella of relativism. It is time for all of us in the free world to face the reality of Salafi Islam or the reality of radical Islam will continue to face us.

    Maybe we should have listened to South Park creators before we came to this point.

    And so we have folks like this Mahmud Faruq Brent Al Mutazzim who was just pleaded guilty to conspiring to help a terrorist organization and his loving sister;

    A woman who identified herself only as his sister Atullah questioned outside court what the word terrorism means in America.

    “What is terrorism? If you step on an ant, it’s terrorism,” she said.

    Asked what her brother’s intentions were, she said: “To serve God, to pray and help mankind.”

    Yeah, doesn’t everybody go to terrorist camps to serve God?

  • WaPo is still spazzin’ out over “the 16 words”

    In an article entitled How Bogus Letter became a Case for War by Peter Eisner, the Washington Post is still living in the past, still beating dead horses, still suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome and I guess they can’t find anything else to complain about at Walter Reed;

    It was 3 a.m. in Italy on Jan. 29, 2003, when President Bush in Washington began reading his State of the Union address that included the now famous — later retracted — 16 words: “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

    Like most Europeans, Elisabetta Burba, an investigative reporter for the Italian newsweekly Panorama, waited until the next day to read the newspaper accounts of Bush’s remarks. But when she came to the 16 words, she recalled, she got a sudden sinking feeling in her stomach. She wondered: How could the American president have mentioned a uranium sale from Africa?

    Maybe because the British intelligence community still stands by the information in the letter. The whole reason Ms. Burba thinks the letter is a forgery is because it mentions Niger sending 500 tons of uranium to Iraq every year. She claims it would take every truck in Niger to move that much uranium – and it may, I’m in no position to argue that with her.

    But Hussein, in 2000, when the letter was allegedly written, had every reason to believe that the sanctions against him would be lifted – afterall everyone thought that Gore was going to be our next President, and you know damn well he’d have lifted the sanctions with the help of Hussein’s cronies in the Oil for Food scandal, Russia and France.

    If the Washington Post thinks they can discount this whole story because some journalist “googled” the available truck tonnage in Niger, they really ought to think again. We found tons of mortar and artillery shells that Hussein had trucked from Jordan after the sanctions were imposed in 1990 buried in Kuwait. When the criminals of the world smell money, means are of little concern to them. I know it’s hard for the Washington Post and Peter Eisner to understand that.

    So let’s have Christopher Hitchens explain it to them;

    To summarize, then: In February 1999 one of Saddam Hussein’s chief nuclear goons paid a visit to Niger, but his identity was not noticed by Joseph Wilson, nor emphasized in his “report” to the CIA, nor mentioned at all in his later memoir. British intelligence picked up the news of the Zahawie visit from French and Italian sources and passed it on to Washington. Zahawie’s denials of any background or knowledge, in respect of nuclear matters, are plainly laughable based on his past record, and he is still taken seriously enough as an expert on such matters to be invited (as part of a Jordanian delegation) to Hans Blix’s commission on WMD. Two very senior and experienced diplomats in the field of WMDs and disarmament, both of them from countries by no means aligned with the Bush administration, have been kind enough to share with me their disquiet at his activities. What responsible American administration could possibly have viewed any of this with indifference?

    Exactly. What RESPONSIBLE administration could have ignored it? And just because the WaPo think that the “16 words” are the sole reason we went to Iraq doesn’t mean rational, thinking humans can’t mention a few more reasons.

  • Hello, Mr Reid? Reality calling…

    Harry Reid is threatening to cut off funds to the Iraq War, according to AP;

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday he wants to cut off money for the Iraq War next year, making clear for the first time that Democrats are willing to pull out all the stops to end U.S. involvement.

    Reid’s new strategy faces an uphill battle because many of his colleagues see yanking funds as a dangerous last resort. The proposal increases the stakes on the debate and marks a new era for the Democratic leadership once reluctant to talk about Congress’ power of the purse.

    Power of the purse, huh? Well, according to Charlie Rangel, the power of the purse means buying votes from Democrats for things they ordinarily wouldn’t support, according to Crotchety Old Bastard;

    Tim Russert: The House voted for funding for the war with a date certain, March of ’08, to begin a withdrawal of U.S. troops. But in that bill was $20 billion of so-called pork: money for cricket infestation, tours of the capitol, security at the national convention, peanut crops. Why would the Democrats put that kind of money in such a serious bill?

    Rep. Charlie Rangel: Because they needed the votes. That bill, we lost so many Democrats, one, because people thought we went too far and other’s because we didn’t go far enough. So a lot of things had to go into a bill that certainly those of us who respect great legislation did not want in there…And I didn’t care what was in that bill if there was anything to slow down, to say what the American people said in the last election, ‘get out of Iraq.’”

    So by Democrats’ own admission, they’re forcing a policy on the American people that isn’t popular. Despite the fact that they keep repeating to themselves that the American people want us out of Iraq, Democrats’ majority is so slim that they have to bribe THEMSELVES.

    If Americans really wanted us out of Iraq, the Democrats would hold a good solid majority that would override any veto or any debate instead of holding their peckers in a sandstorm.

    I love it when John Kerry thinks he’s relevant;

    In the face of the administration’s stubborn unwillingness to change course, the Senate has no choice but to force a change of course,” said Sen John Kerry who signed on Monday as a co-sponsor of Reid’s proposal with Sen. Russ Feingold.

    I thought that was what their big vote last week was about. What’s this new vote going to be about? I guess the Left only grades its accomplishments on intentions rather than results.

    Bush has said several times he would veto the measure, and Republicans say they’ll back him. On Monday, 154 House Republicans sent Bush a letter promising to stick with him in opposition to the legislation.

    Mindful that they hold a shaky majority in Congress and that neither chamber has enough votes to override a presidential veto, Democrats are already thinking about the next step after Bush rejects their legislation.

    From defeat to defeat, you can always count on the Democrats bravely head into the next defeat. It’s too bad they won’t focus this kind of exhuberance on our real enemies instead of imagined ones.

    Fox News Channel gets the language from Feingold’s office;

    “No funds appropriated or otherwise made available under any provision of law may be obligated or expended to continue the deployment in Iraq of members of the United States Armed Forces after March 31, 2008,” reads the measure.

    So I guess al Qaida in Iraq can just go lay out on the Riviera for a year and take a well-deserved break. maybe take in some of the Roman ruins or cruise the Greek Isles while Harry Reid swings at shadows. 

    The Washington Examiner reports that;

    Six in 10 Americans say they favor a timetable to remove all troops within six months, and the number grows to 71 percent if all troops are removed within two years, according to recent AP-Ipsos polling.

    But threatening to cut off funding for the troops makes Democrats a target for criticisms that they have turned their backs on the military – a charge administration officials and Vice President Dick Cheney made Monday.

    I wonder if AP bothered to ask Americans what they thought of cutting off funding for the troops when they did their poll. It seems to me that if Reid and Pelosi had those kind of numbers for cutting off funding, they wouldn’t need to bribe their caucus – or even the Republicans.

    Well, Cliff May at The Corner has the polls that ask that very question;

    • A Bloomberg poll last month found that 61% of Americans believe withholding funding for the war is a bad idea, while only 28% believe it is a good idea.

     

    • According to a March USA Today/Gallup poll, 61% of Americans oppose “denying the funding needed to send any additional troops to Iraq.”

     

    • That poll also showed that only 20% of Americans want to withdraw the troops immediately.

     

    • Public Opinion Strategies (POS) recently reported that a majority of voters (54%) oppose the Democrats imposing a reduction in troops below the level military commanders requested.

     

    • A POS poll in February found that 59% of voters believe pulling out of Iraq immediately would do more to harm America’s reputation in the world than staying until order is restored.

     

    • That POS poll also finds 57% of voters support staying in Iraq until the job is finished and “the Iraqi government can maintain control and provide security for its people.”

     

    • According to a Time magazine poll also taken in March, only 32% want to withdraw the troops within the next year no matter what happens.

    And we hear from S.A.Miller of the Washington Times that the Republicans are sticking together;

    Congressional Democrats say Republicans are following Mr. Bush “off a cliff” by backing the increasingly unpopular Iraq war.
        Republicans call it a principled stand.
        “Our members are trying to figure out what is the right thing to do rather than what’s the popular thing to do,” said House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, Missouri Republican.
        Republicans say they are cognizant of widespread opposition to the Iraq war, as seen in a USA Today/Gallup poll last week that showed 69 percent of American adults disapprove of the president’s handling of war and 60 percent support a troop pullout by fall 2008.
        But Republicans are united in opposition to the Democrats’ bills that tie emergency war funding to pullout timetables and to about $20 billion in domestic spending, including pork-barrel projects.
        Their stand continues to win approval from most Republican voters, though the lawmakers say their position is not anchored by polls.

    Imagine that, politicians that don’t bow down to private poll numbers. Why…you could almost call that leadership couldn’t you?

    And the Democrat caucus could just fall apart, too;

    Most Republicans and many conservative Democratic senators, including Ben Nelson of Nebraska, have been reluctant to embrace a timetable in Iraq. Nelson agreed last week to swing behind the Senate spending bill, which calls for troops to leave by March 31, 2008, only because the date was nonbinding and not a firm deadline.

    Nelson also agreed to vote for the measure because Reid added language Nelson wanted outlining steps the Iraqi government should take to improve stability in Iraq.

    But when all is lost, send in the last remaining screeching harpie;

    “This is vetoing the will of the American people,” Clinton said. “It is time for us to get them out of the middle of this sectarian civil war.”

    So it seems that Dingy Harry Reid, John “Vietnam Veteran who Richard Nixon sent to Cambodia” Kerry, Hillary “Husband, what Husband?” Clinton and Russ “Old hippies are the grooviest” Feingold are just whistlin’ past the graveyard since Nelson won’t agree to cutting off funding for the troops – and no one can count on Chuck Hagel for anything…ever, Democrats just won’t have the votes to cut off funding.

    Time drag out your pink feather boas, girls.

  • Veterans victims of neglect

    Not much in the news today, too many newspapers (and I heard Drudge yapping about it last night), the Washington Post, the Washington Times, specifically, are reporting that Hillary is out-raising all of the Presidential contenders. Why should anyone think that is news is beyond me. All of her friends are guilt-ridden millionaires. The best way to assuage guilt, for the Left anyway, is throw money at the candidate who promises to take money away from them to level that nebulous “playing field”. After all, the government knows best, right?

    Well, Cynthia Crossen has an historical account in today’s Wall Street Journal (it may require a subscription) of the veterans of WWI President Roosevelt shipped off to the Florida Keys to build the causeway there in 1934;

    They were troubled souls — misfits, roughnecks and roustabouts, many of them psychologically damaged and alcoholic. They were World War I veterans who couldn’t find their place in American society. In 1934, in the depths of the Depression, the federal government shipped hundreds of them to isolated work camps in Florida, out of sight and, thus, out of the newspapers.

    But the government inadvertently had sentenced many of these men, who had survived artillery shells, sniper fire and poison gas, to death in the Florida Keys.

    The story of how some 260 World War I veterans were killed by the Labor Day hurricane of 1935 is also a sorry tale of bureaucratic arrogance and bumbling — part of a long and continuing series of controversies surrounding the treatment of soldiers by Washington once their duty is done.

    In this case, the chain of responsibility for what Ernest Hemingway described as “manslaughter” began in Franklin Roosevelt’s White House and extended to the Florida statehouse, the National Weather Bureau and administrators of the three island work camps.

    You could probably draw two parallels to the events of today with the Washington Post’s Walter Reed fixation and the victims of Katrina – arguably all victims of uncaring government incompetence. But I think Americans can draw lessons that rang true in 1935 and in 2007. Pinning your life, your family and all your worldly possessions on the hope that government isn’t a pack of incompetent boobs is a fool’s errand.

    Anyone who has spent more than a minute in uniform knows that the government hardly knows you exists, and as long as they direct-deposit your pay check every month, you learn to adapt.

    Ms. Crossen continues with her story;

    Within a week, the federal and state governments and the American Legion had launched separate investigations. The finger-pointing began. Many people wanted to fix the blame on the Weather Bureau for its vague forecasts. But why hadn’t camp officials, who had been told by some longtime Keys residents that the men were in danger, ordered a train earlier? Why had the director of Florida’s work camps taken a two-hour lunch on Labor Day, during which he couldn’t be reached? Whose idea was it to put jerry-built camps in low-lying areas during hurricane season?

    Harry Hopkins, director of the Works Progress Administration, immediately sent a team to the Keys. “Washington bureaucrats may be mixing a viscous vat of whitewash,” commented a Miami newspaper. As one of the investigators, John J. Abt, later wrote, “We were on a political mission to defend the administration against charges of negligence. The investigation took all of a day.”

    The report, based on interviews with 16 people, ended: “To our mind the catastrophe must be characterized as ‘an act of God’ and was by its very nature beyond the power of man … to permit the taking of adequate precautions.”

    Investigators from the American Legion came to a different conclusion. The vets died because of the “inefficiency, indifference and ignorance” of camp administrators, they said.

    All of it sounds familiar, doesn’t it? You’d think we’d have all learned our lesson 70-odd years ago that government is not the solution to all of our problems – Hell, they’re probably not the solution to even some of our problems. So why are we so encouraged by candidates who promise to make our lives better? I’ll never understand.

  • Why Gonzalez?

    I was watching Fox News Sunday and Joe “are my hair plugs straight?” Biden while Chris Wallace asked him if his call for investigations into the firing of federal prosecutors are somewhat diluted by his refusal to investigate the firings of 93 investigators by the Clinton Administration as requested by then-Minority Leader Bob Dole. The first thing I remembered was last week’s rant by newly-admitted “Truther” Rosie O’Donnell when she announced that “just about every high level member of the Bush administration is under indictment from Rove to Gonzalez”.

    Well, we know that’s not true – not that it matters to Rosie or her View-ers.

    The only staff member who’s been indicted is Scooter Libby. There’s not even an investigation of any member of the Administration, except by the partisan committees in the House and Senate who are looking real hard to find something, anything they can find to fuel the idiots and morons of the O’Donnell fan club.

    You’ve got the Washington Post reporters Amy Goldstein and Dan Eggan with the “shocking” news today that this President has been giving prosecutor jobs to people he’s worked with and whom he knows shares his views;

    The people chosen as chief federal prosecutors on a temporary or permanent basis since early 2005 include 10 senior aides to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, according to an analysis of government records. Several came from the White House or other government agencies. Some lacked experience as prosecutors or had no connection to the districts in which they were sent to work, the records and biographical information show.

    The new U.S. attorneys filled vacancies created through natural turnover in addition to the firings of eight prosecutors last year that have prompted a political uproar and congressional investigations.

    Apparently that’s considered news at the Washington Post – the fact that Presidents hire people they know and trust. I guess they’d be happier if he just rounded up the hobos in Lafayette Park to fill the vacated lawyer positions. Or even happier if they hired the various and sundry lawyers who hold political views diametrically opposed to the Administration.

    Then they go on to announce that is clearly a violation of no law, except the Law of No One Has Done This Before;

    No other administration in contemporary times has had such a clear pattern of filling chief prosecutors’ jobs with its own staff members, said experts on U.S. attorney’s offices. Those experts said the emphasis in appointments traditionally has been on local roots and deference to home-state senators, whose support has been crucial to win confirmation of the nominees.

    Of course they don’t name “experts” or bother to compare the hirings of other “administrations in contemporary times”. Eggan’s weakass explanations on this issue in emails to me hardly bare repeating with bandwidth for which I pay. His defense to me on nearly every issue related to this case includes the word “unprecedented”. So because there’s no precedent, it must be wrong. Wanna discuss the Travel Office firings? That was unprecedented, too. Apparently these investigations are unprecedented, too, if there was no investigation by Biden’s committee when Dole asked for them.

    The President shares partial blame for the Democrats’ targeting his staff by asking for Rumsfeld’s resignation  for no good reason. But the Left thinks they can cause disarray at the Bush White House by investigating every burp from his cabinet and declaring it was, instead, a fart. The Rumsfeld incident only made Democrats think he was being weak and now they’ve gone for the juglar on every issue that comes up in the Administration. Much like the terrorists are emboldened by the Congress’ weakness in dealing with them.

    The Left can’t find any real corruption, so with their willing accomplices in the press, they manufacture some corruption.

    I think it’d be more appropriate for the Bush Administration to start it’s own investigations of Sandy Berger, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, William Jefferson, John “Unindicted co-conspirator” Murtha apparently REALLY corrupt politicians, instead of people who hire qualified and connected prosecutors. That would be a domestic corollary to the Bush Doctrine of Pre-emption. 

    So in the meantime, the Defense Budget sits languishing and gathering dust somewhere on Capitol Hill while Congress takes off for their Spring Break and the Rosie O’Donnells and Dan Eggans do the Democrats’ heavylifting with repetitious, tedious and pedestrian blather.

  • AP’s weasel words

    Just started reading the news and came across the AP’s story about the President going to Walter Reed today. What a smoldering turd of an unattributed AP story at Yahoo and another at WaPo and the Examiner by Jennifer Loven;

    Bush on Friday was to tour the campus for the first time since reports surfaced of shabby conditions for veterans in outpatient housing.

    Yes, it probably will be the first time he’s visited since LAST MONTH when the Washington Post covered the front page of every issue with the story. The truth is; President Bush has rarely missed a month visiting Walter Reed or Bethesda Naval Hospital. Since my wife works there and I have to hear her complain about the parking problems there when the President comes, I guess I’d know, wouldn’t I? In fact, when she went in this morning, she took the subway because she knew parking would be a mess today.

    Walter Reed is considered one of the Army’s premier facilities for treating the wounded. The revelations of shoddy treatment for those wounded in war was an embarrassment to Bush, who routinely speaks of the need to support the troops.

    The story makes it sound as if the troops were complaining about their medical treatment – that’s not the case. I’ve never read ONE COMMENT about poor medical treatment. The problem was with OUTPATIENT HOUSING (nothing new for the Army). Get it straight, AP.

    This week, the House voted to create a coterie of case managers, advocates and counselors for injured troops. The bill also establishes a hotline for medical patients to report problems in their treatment.

    Um, if AP was doing their job, they’d point out that all of these services are already available at Walter Reed, without Congress having to vote. And again, AP makes it sound as if the problem was with medical treatment.

    Piss-poor reporting. But bloggers need editors to be accurate, right?

    UPDATE: AP changed the story at the Yahoo link I provided. Shame on me for no screen shot.

  • Axis of Weasels hard at work

    Democrats are trying to shift blame to the President for their vote to withdraw troops from Iraq. As I said yesterday, Harry Reid hopes that his willing accomplices in the press can make the case for him and turn the tables so that the President is to blame for Congress’ inability to pass funding for defense without loading it up with pork. And the Washington Post does their level best;

     Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said it is Bush who would pay the price if a veto fight slowed down funding for the military, including billions of dollars for veterans’ health care and other benefits. “If the president vetoes this bill, it is an asterisk in history,” Reid said. “He sets the record of undermining the troops more than any president we’ve ever had.”

    So by vetoing a bill that undermines our troops, the President will be undermining our troops? I’d like to see a wire diagram of that process.

    To their credit, Republicans seem willing to stand up for the President for a change;

    Bush spent much of the closed-door meeting with House Republicans pressing an issue that many conservatives have already latched on to as a unifying force — the pork-barrel spending, unrelated to the war, in the bill. At one point, Bush asked House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) if he could rally his troops to sustain a veto on the spending issue alone, even if Democrats stripped out language on troop withdrawals. When Boehner turned to his colleagues to ask if they would stay with Bush, they gave him a standing ovation.

    And to show how serious the Democrats are about funding the war;

    But Congress now leaves town for a recess, with the House not returning until April 16.

    In other words, they just want to run out the clock instead of playing the game.

    This is exactly how the Democrats pulled a fast one on the first President Bush in 1991 and trapped him into signing the tax hike despite his “no new taxes” pledge that cost him the 1992 election. With troops deployed in the field, they presented the President with a tax increase and pledged to not give the President authorization to use force against Hussein.

    Joseph Curl of the Washington Times reports that this Bush don’t play that;

    “We stand united in saying loud and clear that when we’ve got a troop in harm’s way, we expect that troop to be fully funded,” the president said, surrounded by Republicans on the White House North Portico.
        “And we got commanders making tough decisions on the ground, we expect there to be no strings on our commanders. We expect the Congress to be wise about how they spend the people’s money…”

    “Yesterday, I gave a speech, making it clear that I’ll veto a bill that restricts our commanders on the ground in Iraq, a bill that doesn’t fund our troops, a bill that’s got too much spending on it. I made that clear to the members,” he said.

    John Kerry, who clearly could give not a tiny rat’s ass for the troops chimed in;

    “Despite the reckless veto threats from President Bush, a majority of the Senate joined the House today in telling the administration that we need to set a deadline to bring home our troops from Iraq,” said Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat. “A deadline is the best strategy for ending Iraq’s civil war because it forces Iraqis to stand up for Iraq. Guns alone cannot bring peace to Iraq.”

    It’s not the veto that’s reckless, you big sissy, it’s spending my taxpayer dollars to pay off various interests to make a pointless political point and sacrificing our national security for the sake of a few egos.

    Not to mentioning pissing off our troops even more you have already.