From Talking Points Memo.   Harry Reid gave Bush a few things to mull over at the meeting today:

A source familiar with the meeting -- at which no compromise of any kind was reached, though Speaker Nancy Pelosi said publicly today that it had been "productive" -- shares a few interesting tidbits. First, the source says, Bush bristled and was taken aback when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid compared the current situation to Vietnam; he also appeared irked by those who said the war couldn't be won.

Second, according to the source, Reid told Bush that he understood that the White House would come after Congressional Dems after the veto of the bill with everything they had; Reid vowed to respond every bit as aggressively.

"Reid talked about a recent conversation he had with a retired general where they talked about the similarities between the current situation and Vietnam," the source relates. "He talked about how the President and Secretary of Defense [during Vietnam] knew that the war was lost but continued to press on at the cost of thousands of additional lives lost."

www.tpmcafe.com

"Stop it. Don't sell us out. Follow the polls."

That kinda says it all. I'd really prefer a leadership that takes stands on good principles, but if they won't even take stands on good politics, I don't know what to think. They'd prefer not to do what a majority of Americans want, for fear of ... offending the minority, virtually all of whom are members of the opposing party?

On the other hand, the article cites 'several House members'?

Is this sourcing in accordance with WaPo guidelines? Several House members? We don't even know how many, exactly? What party they're in? Who are these masked members, and why should I trust the Washington Post isn't talking nonsense?

Congressional Democrats need to hold Bush's feet to the fire on a timetable for withdrawal.

It's not going to make a dime's worth of difference if we pull out tomorrow or next year. The Iraqi's will engage in a wholesale blood bath. If they can't settle it themselves, then let them ask for international help in dealing with their situation.

Democrats need to treat Bush's interminable occupation policy to be the result of a delusional madman. Call his bluff to veto the bill. If Bush veto's the bill, then Democrats can accuse Bush of failing to support our troops as he has done all along anyhow.

If Bush veto's the defense spending bill, then the Democrats can offer Gov. Bill Richardson's (D-NM) 7 Point New Realism Plan for Iraq. http://therichardsonsolution.typepad.com /

Richardson's plan gives Democrats a response to a Bush veto.

This is Bush's war.  He wanted it.  He decided when to invade.  He decided how to invade and with how many troops.  Democrats have no obligation to manage this war or take on any responsibility for this war.  

We should end it as soon as we can, which I think our members in Congress are trying to do without slitting out throats for '08.  

America needs to understand that more Democrats equal a faster withdrawl, and more Republicans equal a stay the course surge.

I'm not ready to join Cindy Whatshername in singing camp fire songs.

to the President is that they've made some compomises and this is the best deal he's going to get.  If he vetoes this bill, they are going to come back with a tougher one, binding or with shorter deadlines on withdrawal.  Its about time this Congress got the message about why they were put into power.  It wasn't to make nice and give the President whatever he wants.  That was the old Congress.

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The compromise language would keep the deadlines included in the original House bill but make them nonbinding, as the Senate version did, and would allow President Bush to waive troop-readiness standards

One of these might make sense or even be a good idea. But both?

If the dems can cut a smart compromise that gets the  bill through, that is actually a plus-- after all, they've done that once already. But we have to know the difference between a smart compromise and a Bush-style "compromise", where "compromise" means Bush gets everything he wants and the rest of America gets nothing. If the deadlines are nonbinding and the readiness standards are waivable... what, exactly, is the difference between this and full funding without restrictions? What exactly is the difference between this and doing nothing?

If it were up to me, and it's clearly not, I'd say go ahead and make the timetable nonbinding. The thing about the timetable is it was always fungible anyway: If the timetable turned out to be a bad idea, as the right-wing pundits freak out it will, we could always change the timetable. If Bush turns out to be planning to ignore the timetable, we can always pass stronger timetable-enforcement provisions later-- especially if it's true the Republicans are likely to give up on the war by September. Making the timetable nonbinding while sending a clear message that this nonbinding timetable isn't the last word the Congress has on the subject would be probably and definitely a good PR move.

But the dems should absolutely refuse to budge on the troop readiness thing. One, probably even Bush is not stupid enough to veto a bill because it forced him to not send troops into harm's way without proper preparation; flinching isn't the only way to lose a game of chicken, and that is one of them. Two, it does more good both in terms of more public support and in terms of practical things-- Bush could have probably found a way to ignore a timetable that's nine months off, but stopping the surge/escalation is important now.

If they go ahead and pass a no-strings,-just-posturing bill, though? Not only will they have done nothing, but the public is almost certain to be unimpressed, just like no one was impressed by the "nonbinding resolution" that got shut down earlier in the year. The PR maneuvering of the whole thing will be seen through, and the Democrats will be seen as weak and capitulating, again, like they were the first four years of this war.

What can be done about this?

So what's the real story? AP says Pelosi and Reid are not budging. Then the WAPO rag says otherwise??

Conference Committee negotiators, and he's adamant on watering down to symbolic level any bill that emerges, then you're going to have a hard time.  

This guy wields a ton of power given his position of being able to single handedly prevent a bill he doesn't like from emerging from Conference Committee.  There wouldn't appear to be too much that can be done to force him to relent.  

There was actually a public radio show on today(Which Way LA?) focusing on this very issue.  Sadly, the view from the journo was that Pelosi would need to have the out of iraq caucus to give in again to get anywhere, and the hope would be they would water down the bill enough to gain some offsetting Republican votes.

Ugh.

We need to stay on them about this. Further watering down would be a tragedy for our troops and for the Iraqis, and political catastrophe in view of the overwhelming support for withdrawal among Democrats. It'd be nice to have leaders who recognize the obvious but for now I guess we have to provide the spine.

Next step... Where's MOVEON.org? -- people are getting pissed in our council I wonder what's happening elsewhere.

The bill to fund the war is not about the war it is about funding.  The Dems like the GOP are funded by corporate America. The only reason we know about Hilary, Obama, Edwards, McCain, Guilani is because their campaigns are well funded. Corporate America supplies these funds.

The Dems and the GOP know that if they cut the funding for the war they are denying billions of dollars to their backers. The cash pipeline that funds their campaigns will be severely impacted.
Corporate America will find and back alternative candidates who will promote their special interests.

The Dems also know that their constituents want to end the war.  Therfore they are between a rock and a hard place.  There best approach is to give lip service to ending the war without cutting the funding.

By providing non-binding timelines they can say to their constituents that we tried to end the war.
They can also tell their corporate backers that their money is still coming indefinitely (at least until after the next election is over).

Also the Dems added a lot of pork to the funding bill.  This is to appease their backers by saying: look we may be about ending the funding a year from now but we have provided you with alternative ways to get your cash now.

Congress could end the war now, there are several proposed plans that provide reasonable ways to do this without putting the troops in harms way.

The Dems could take a stand and force the issue.  Bush and the republicans would have to cave-in or take the heat for putting our troops in harms way.  

Bush, not congress, would have to explain as commander-in-chief why he denied our troops the money to return home.

The bottom line is this: Our troops are not at risk. Nobody is insane enough to leave them in Iraq to fend for themselves. What is at risk is billions of dollars allocated to corporate America for the war.  The funding for Hilary's and Obama's campaign will dry up if they take a firm stand and
drop the funding for the war. Surprisingly, a new presidential candidate will emerge -- one who can effectively appease the American public and keep the cash flowing.

The Dems will have to put their jobs at risk to cut funding.   Bush knows this. That is why Bush can stand firm and get a "clean bill".

The Dems are forced into a choice:
(1) Stand for principal and lose their jobs
(2) Keep their jobs and cave-in to Bush.

andidates is because they are able raise funds for their campaigns.

The politicians that get elected are the ones who bow to the needs of the special interests.

That is why so much pork was added to the bill.  To appease corporate America by setting a timeline for when billions

Wow, when you get really angry you actually write posts in a style that don't piss me off.

Channel that rage, it makes you do good work.

So that we aren't falling into the same trap that the Republicans did when starting the war, who is doing the post-war analysis to make sure we understand what to expect afterwards? Not only in Iraq, but throughout the region. Is there a white paper that details the political, economic and social affects of a staged withdrawal? And how America should prepare for these effects?