no power brought to bear against them,

no movement on their part.

for anything

anything at all.

Doesn’t sound very wingnutty to me.

HARDBALL?

Are you people on crack?

Congress should have re-upped the exact same fucking bill and sent it back to Bush.

Bravo President Bush! The Democrats have put themselves between a rock and a hard place. He should veto any bill they pass if it deviates in the slightest way from his original proposal. This gives the Democrats a no-win choice: either they capitulate completely or they force President Bush to use emergency executive funding authority to rescue the troops from running out of ammunition in the middle of battle. Either way they face total humiliation and sideline themselves completely from any role in governing throughout the rest of the congressional term. Aw shucks, it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch!

Dude, when it’s your boy saying no to what the people voted for last year, it’s not our boys that are “humiliated”. If they sent back the same bill and he kept vetoing it, Gore would win in a landslide in ‘08.

Absolute gutless fucking cowards. They should have sent him the same bill back and said “think again”. Or an even tougher one, saying the first troop to leave leaves tomorrow.

Hmmm, political issues? Through the Iraqi legislature?

Could Cheney be talking about the Iraqi Oil Law that the Iraqis just can’t seem to find time to pass?

Cheney (and Bush) are desperate to get that Oil Law passed, to lock in the Iraqi oil resources and revenues for the next several decades for their pals in the Western oil companies.

So, Democrats have a wedge if they are willing to use it.

Democrats in Congress should link the passage of the Iraqi Oil Law by the Iraqi legislature to our troops withdrawing from Iraq in six months.

Hell, I heard today that a majority in the Iraqi legislature just passed a law demanding that our troops get out.

Thus, all that now needs to be done is get Bush and Cheney on board, which will require offering them something they really, really want…like the Iraqi legislature passing their Oil Law, while throwing a bone to the Iraqi legislators…a set time for U.S. troops to leave Iraq (like in six months).

(Note: of course, once foreign forces are gone from Iraq, there’s no guarantee that the Iraqis will honor the Oil Law, but may instead decide to scrap it and sign oil contracts with whomever they want, not only Western oil companies. Will Cheney and Bush want to risk this? Are they gambling men? On the other hand, odds are increasing that the Iraqi legislature won’t do anything about the Oil Law by the time Bush and Cheney leave office, which can’t happen a minute too soon).

George W. Bush doesn’t seem like a smart guy, but he knows not to negotiate with himself.

David Obey doesn’t seem like a *dumb* guy, but he *doesn’t* know not to negotiate with himself.

Is it *possible* for the Democratic leadership to resist the urge to talk about how much they’re compromising with Bush?

Better yet, is it *possible* for them to resist the urge to compromise with Bush?

Look, you can compromise with Bush, but don’t go telling us you had to unless you’ve got a damn good reason – and “I didn’t want the Republicans to say mean things about me” is not. A. Damn. GOOD. *REASON*.

It means that President Bush simply dedicates existing federal revenues to buying the necessary equipment and supplies to support our troops. I suppose you expect him to stand helplessly by while our troops get defenselessly slaughtered in Iraq?

[LithiumCola’s well-researched and insightful DailyKos diary and its links have finally helped me to realize the transformative quantity and therefore power of the untapped oil wealth that Iraq holds - and that Bush & Cheney & (apparently) Congress are determined to help their multinationals get legal rights to and their hands on, at taxpayer expense and at the expense of the victims of our invasion. Iraq’s rebuilding could be paved with gold if they were to retain the rights to their own oil, from what I can glean.]

“Legal rights” takes on something of a novel shade, when considering the situation was crafted out of a patently illegal invasion. One might think the Iraqi parliament might later renegotiate, or void, such “revenue sharing” agreements; perhaps therein lies one of the prime considerations of the permanent bases?