"I don't want to hear from any one except maybe Jim Webb right now."
??
I'm as big a supporter of Jim Webb as anyone, but he's said since the beginning of his campaign a year ago that he doesn't want to vote for a withdrawal timeline attached to funding.
That's what's on offer in the Senate version of the supplemental, and unless something changes I'm expecting him to vote against it. He said as much on some news show recently.
yep. he said he was against a withdrawal timeline during his speech at the national press club on wednesday (3/22/07). you can watch the streaming webcast at c-span.
by the time this bill gets out of the senate, through the house/senate reconciliation process - i can't see how there is going to be any withdrawal timeline left. if that happens, bush will have gotten what he wants - funding for his war/occupation for the rest of his term. and the house just helped him get it.
i hope to god i am completely wrong on this. i will be very happy in a month to be able to say i was a complete idiot on how this would go down.
Take a longer view. We didn't get into this war without forty years of organizing by conservatives, and we're not going to get out with one election no matter how clever the legislative strategy.
matt - to me this bill looked good in the very short term and bad everywhere else. i don't know that my analysis is correct - and i'm really, really hoping to be wrong.
imo, the discussions (although painful) are good to have, and i again thank you for participating in them - even when (or especially when) there are such strong feelings and disagreements.
and i do believe we're all on the same side here...
We are all on the same side if we act like it. If I had to guess, I'd say that nothing that we do for the next two years will have any effect on the military situation in Iraq, and can only set up a better electoral landscape for progressives in 2008 or an impeachment prior to that.
This bill is important or the precedent it sets, but it's only a small first step.
You have no realistic alternative. Kucinich? Are you kidding? Watch the vote collapse to under 100, and then where would we be?
Stay out of the tent, telling the rest of us we're crazy. Time will tell. If you're right, the Democrats will have moved that way.
When you deal with Democratic Party, the oldest political party in the world, you're not dealing with a revolutionary vanguard.
Remember Murtha's first press conference? Remember how many Democrats voted with him? Kerry got, what, 12 votes? I'd say the change to a winning vote is significant. For a long time now, they've just been quarelling about how long to wait before we leave. Aside from Joltin' Joe, name another Democrat who's with Bush?
As did Jon Tester and 8 other Democrats. The rest of the Democrats voted for it. Sanders bill would have rescinded the tax cuts for the top 1% and used the money to pay for several good causes.
I would really like to hear why two candidates who ran on an economic populist platform would vote the complete opposite of that platform.
Webb is a conservative so I figured he would vote neocon on social issues, but I did expect him to be populist on his economic votes. So far, big disappointment.
Tester is the more shocking of the two, being a small businessman and organic farmer. Don't know if it was the property tax issue or what--but I will be watching both very closely.
