Redstate

Not to interrupt their paeans of joy over the Obama win, of course.

By Moe Lane Posted in Congress | GWOT | Liberals | Nancy Pelosi | Netroots — Comments (12) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

I'll wait.

(pause)

All right?

OK, explain something to me. Obama's the inevitable nominee, yes, yes, the GOP is doomed, yadda, yadda, the Democrats are going to take the White House, consolidate Congress, cut and run from Iraq, start war crimes trials against the Bush administration, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Oh, yes, by now we over here on the Right can sing along; you folks haven't been shy about blaring these - and one other - discordant tunes in our weary, weary ears. 2007 might have been a lowered-expectations disaster for your crowd, but with the new wave of Red-to-Blue (or whatever you're calling it) we should be on the brink of the Glorious People's Progressive Future. Why, we're even hearing about how Nancy Pelosi is going to stand up to the administration with the new war supplemental bill (H/t: Hot Air). All in all: this is supposed to be your time.

So why are you letting the Democratic leadership set you up?

Democrats Unveil War Supplemental Plans

House Democratic leaders outlined a war supplemental spending plan to their rank and file Tuesday that will give members a chance to vote separately on Iraq policy riders and various spending add-ons.

The bill, to be brought directly to the floor later this week, would set a Dec. 31, 2009, goal for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. It also would ban permanent U.S. bases in Iraq, limit interrogation techniques to those included in the current Army field manual, bar a status of forces agreement that would obligate the U.S. to defend Iraq without congressional approval, and require Iraq to match U.S. reconstruction funding dollar for dollar. And it would call for U.S. forces to pay the same fuel prices in Iraq as the Iraqis.

The bill will be divided into three sections — for war money, policy riders and domestic spending. That will permit House Democrats to vote for or against each section while still getting the measure through that chamber.

Read on.

This Politico article - "War funding would break Dem promises" (also H/T Hot Air) - is kind of fun in its implications:

This week’s maneuvering over a $200 billion war spending bill has revealed Pelosi self-confidently playing what she believes — with increasing evidence — is a strong hand.

Strong enough that she is expected to break one promise — her 2006 pledge for a more open and inclusive committee process — by circumventing the powerful House Appropriations Committee on the Iraq bill.

And when the final Iraq bill reaches the president’s desk, any troop withdrawal conditions are likely to be gone from the legislation. That is another 2006 pledge that has fallen by the wayside.

Pelosi’s calculation, say political analysts, seems clear. Democrats are using the Iraq bill as leverage for billions of dollars in domestic spending priorities. As for anti-war activists, they seem to accept the speaker’s logic: More than 40 previous Iraq votes have left Democrats maxed out in terms of legislative efforts to dictate an end to the war over a veto-wielding President Bush.

Let me translate that for you: Speaker Pelosi's contempt for her base couldn't be any more obvious if you painted it with red and white stripes. She knows that the netroots stopped caring about open government once it stopped being a campaign promise and started being an actual policy; and she knows - because they've proved it to her, time and time again - that progressives generate considerably more light than heat when it comes to ending the GWOT in Iraq. Hence the split: the Members of Congress who are pretending to be most outraged over the issue will be able to pretend to vote their consciences, it'll get tossed, and all that will be left is the lovely, lovely pork - which will hopefully get vetoed by the President, letting the Democrats go through the motions of trying to make political hay from it.

Speaking as a neoconservative, I am going to freely admit that I don't really care overmuch about whatever Kabuki theater needs to take place in order to fund both the troops and their presence in Iraq. But for the life of me, I can't understand why this doesn't grate on progressive souls. This mechanism is how they are going to continue funding the war, they are not being particularly quiet about how they are going to continue funding the war, and there's no indication that they are going to even be slowed down in continuing to fund the war. Which leads to two questions:

1). When will the antiwar movement actually start wielding the power that they supposedly hold?

and

2). If I hit them hard in the nose hard enough with a rolled-up newspaper, will they whimper and show me their belly, too?

Moe

PS: Forgot one other question.

3). Isn't it just completely unfair that I can still ask questions like this, a year-plus into a Democratic Congress?

[Addendum by Erick:] Just to be clear netrooties, when your favorite member of Congress votes on the rule to approve Nancy's plan, they *are voting for* this way to save face with you while betraying you. They figure you are too dumb to notice. Of course, so do we, which is why we wanted to point it out and rub your noses in it.