David Sirota:
Here’s how it is expected to work today in a process only Dick Cheney could love (though you never know - it could change at the last minute). Every bill comes to the House floor with what is known as a “rule” that sets the terms of the debate over the legislation in question. House members first vote to approve this parliamentary rule, and then vote on the legislation. Today, however, Democrats are planning to essentially include the Iraq blank check bill IN the rule itself, by making sure the underlying bill the rule brings to the floor includes no timelines for withdrawal, and that the rule only allows amendments that fund the war with no restrictions - blank check amendments that House Democratic leaders know Republicans will have the votes to pass.
This means that when the public goes to look for the real vote on the Iraq supplemental bill, the public won’t find that. All we will find is a complex parliamentary procedure vote, which was the real vote. Democratic lawmakers, of course, will use the Memorial Day recess to tell their angry constituents they really are using all of their power to end the war, that they voted against the Republican blank check amendment which the rule deliberately propels, and that the vote on the rule - which was the real vote for war - wasn’t really the important vote, when, in fact, they know very well it is the biggest vote on the war since original 2002 authorization for the invasion. It is a devious, deliberately confusing cherry on top of the manure sundae being served up to the American public, which voted Democrats into office on the premise that they would use their congressional majority to end the war.
In the next few weeks, when the President's approval rating finally begins to climb, you'll hear a lot of bullshit from the press about how the American people have always loved him and always supported the war blah blah blah.. But the fact is, the Democrats have ceded the momentum back to the President through their own cowardice. They have lived up to the previously unearned Neo-con criticism that they are the party of "cut and run". The Democrats of the 110th Congress have "cut and run" on the most important issue of their term. They have betrayed their clear mandate to stand up to this President and end this horrible war. Now they will pay a political price for that. And they deserve everything they get.
Also see Olberman... who is exactly right.
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