Democrats To Wait Until September For Surrender Bill
By Ed Morrissey on Iraq
Captain's Quarters
Apparently the Democrats have resolved to wait until September to offer a withdrawal bill -- and John Murtha stomped off the floor when he learned about their plans. He had planned to offer a bill which would have required withdrawal to start within 60 days but not demand an end date, and the anti-war faction balked:
<<< A proposal by Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) for the House to vote on withdrawal from Iraq without a timetable has been nixed, several lawmakers and aides said.
The opposition of the Progressive Caucus also apparently doomed a proposal by Reps. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) and John Tanner (D-Tenn.) demanding a redeployment plan from President Bush. The measure will not get a vote this week.
Progressive Caucus lawmakers met Tuesday morning and agreed they would not support any Iraq measure that does not include a firm timetable for withdrawal. ...
“We don’t want to see any retreat,” a Progressive Caucus member, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), said.
That kicks the withdrawal debate ahead to September, when Gen. David Petraeus is to issue a report on the success of President Bush’s “surge” plan. Many Republican lawmakers have said they will re-evaluate their support of Bush’s strategy based on the report. >>>
They don't want to see any retreat? Oh, the irony. They want no surrender on their plans for a full and unconditional surrender on the battlefield. Does the Progressive Caucus take lessons in cluelessness?
The Democrats simply don't have the votes to proceed with the full-surrender plan, not even to get a majority in the House. They certainly don't have the votes in the Senate to get past a cloture test, and that means neither chamber could override a veto. It would only be another in a series of wasted efforts that keep Congress from accomplishing anything else, which the Democratic leadership has belatedly recognized as a problem in the 110th.
Moreover, their support for a complete bug-out has lessened, as the New York Times poll showed last week. Disapproval for the war dropped 10 points over the last two months. A majority still says we should have left Iraq alone, but it's down to 51% now -- and if the change in tactics and improvement in Iraq continues, those numbers may drop lower still.
The split in the Democratic caucus appears to have left them with little choice but to wait for the report from David Petraeus and the Iraqi command in September as first planned. If Petraeus shows real progress in securing Iraq and building a ground-up unity in Baghdad and the western provinces, they may have little choice but to give him even more time than that.
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