JimfromPennsylvania

The American people need to take up a collection and buy the Democrat leaders in the House seeing eye dogs because boy do they need it when it comes to the issue of the Iraq war. This Iraq War funding bill coming up soon in the House with all these “already White House rejected” mandates is bad leadership in the extreme. What is going to happen with this course the Democrat leaders are taking the Congress on is that Congress will end-up getting some form of this $50 billion funding bill passed with controversial strings attached and President Bush just like he promises will veto it and Speaker Pelosi sticking to her word won’t introduce another funding bill until 2008, so what does the nation have to look forward to?, it is that 2008 will start off with a divisive “getting our nation no where” fight over Iraq, probably losing the whole month of January to this needless fight. Someone needs to tell the Democrat leaders there is a concept called “pick your battles” and if you want to act like you have a brain cell in your head the next battle against the White House is in March 2008 when the Generals report to the White House on the status of the Iraq War and the White House makes a decision on the matter of continuing the troop draw down in Iraq. To put it in practical terms the Democrats should stop all their legislative maneuvering on the Iraq issue until March 2008 so what this means with respect to this $50 billion funding bill is just pass the bill with none of these controversial mandates, yet do add if it isn’t already in the bill provisions that the top Pentagon Officials including General Petraeus have to in March of 2008 testify in Congress on their report and recommendation to the White House on Iraq and the White House in March of 2008 has to report to Congress on their plans if any of a further troop draw down in Iraq. If the Democrat leaders follow this wise leadership come March 2008 they won’t be in a situation where they have all the Democrat rank and file in Congress faced off against all the Republican rank and file in Congress over the Iraq war rather they will have the vast majority of Democrat and Republican rank and file on the same side with the vast majority of the American people behind them on the Iraq issue looking across and down at the White House saying you will be doing the right thing on Iraq and continue the draw down won’t you, and I think one can safely say if this is the look of the Congress and the country in March 2008 it will have a meaningful effect on the White House which is smart enough to know that when you have an all volunteer Army doing your fighting for you you can’t ignore the will of the majority of your citizens, the future won’t be pretty if you do. The majority of Republicans and Democrats in Congress like the majority of the American people are basically on the same page on Iraq that is our country has to get out of this war but we don’t want to get out so quick that we cause the Iraq national government to collapse, the only thing the Democrat leaders have to do in order to do the right thing on Iraq is lead this majority.

If the Democrat leaders are honest with themselves they will recognize that they are letting themselves be overly influenced by anti-war zealot groups in the Democrat party who aren’t mainstream America and these groups are going to cause the Democrat party to take paths they are going to regret because of the damage to the Democrat Party’s reputation and lost opportunity in furthering non-Iraq agendas to just name a couple of the reasons. One tends to think watching the Democrat leadership as they continually make full effort frontal attacks in Congress and in the media on the Iraq matter against the White House no matter how stupid such tactics are is that they are super worried over the fact that the American people put the Democrat party in power to get America out of this Iraq War and if America is still in the Iraq war come the next election the America people will penalize them for not achieving the aforementioned goal and remove them from power. This attitude amongst Democrat leaders is foolishness. The Democrat Party, discounting the fact that they often went over board in their effort, have done a great job on Iraq, even though they haven’t gotten America out of the Iraq War they have brought about a change in America’s strategy on Iraq, America has gone from American troops will clear out Iraqi communities of insurgent and militia groups and maintain population security in these areas to America is transitioning to a back-up role for security and Iraqi security forces will handle these principal tasks. Make no mistake about it it has been the Democratic Party’s efforts to force the Pentagon, the White House and the Republican Party to face the realities of what is going on in Iraq and the will of the American people that has brought about this change. Whether it be the Congressional hearings with the tough questions for the Secretaries and Generals or the legislative attempts that would have forced changes in the Iraq strategy the Democrat Party has a record it can be proud of on Iraq, there is no reason that Democrat leaders have to continually act manic on Iraq.

One final note, Democrat leaders have to stop jumping off the same cliff that American political partys always jump off when they get into political power that is the embarrassing earmark cliff. The American people can accept earmarks the American people all know of wonderful earmarks that have been made in their own community but it really tics most Americans off when they hear about clearly inappropriate earmarks especially when a lot of Americans are hurting (44 million uninsured) and a lot of Americans are struggling to make ends meet. The reference here is to the current defense department appropriation’s bill, specifically, the earmark of millions to teach children how to play golf or the earmark of a museum about ice if I have it right, these are clear political blunders. The democratic party should have a staff of people whose duty it is to scrutinize all appropriation bills for such embarrassing earmarks, offer the representative whose district is to receive the embarrassing earmark the same amount of money for another earmark but just one that is not embarrassing which always certainly will be doable.