[QUOTE=Marley23]
I meant to comment on this also: The Democrats took power Thursday. It is now Monday. This rush to judgment is silly.
[/QUOTE]
Yet Ms. Pelosi can rush through the 100 hours agenda asap without even mentioning our soldiers in Iraq. Plus, someone here said that that items in the 100 hours agenda have been previously debated, like the Iraq war hasn’t been for years now.
[QUOTE=Bricker]
… It doesn’t replace the President as C-in-C.
[/QUOTE]
I just want to say that, as a moderate centrist, I find friend Bricker’s call for impeachment a bit radical. But, bless his heart, he means well!
[QUOTE=harveyc]
So if I might take the liberty to summarize what you said, we are going to allow more brave US soldiers to die in Iraq because of politics … and peolple accept this. How sad.
[/QUOTE]
You are sort of saying “If I drop this stone then its going to fall to the ground, despite my preference that it floats around. How sad.” If the people wanted the war stopped, then they would not have re-elected GW Bush for President (though I’m not so certain that if Kerry were president things would be much different wrt Iraq in any case). The reality of the situation is the Dems CAN NOT GET THE TROOPS OUT OF IRAQ AFTER 5 DAYS OF HAVING A RAZOR THIN MAJORITY IN CONGRESS. I know that this reality stuff is hard to accept for one so fervent, but there it is. The only one with the power and ability to get the troops out of Iraq in the short term is Bush…and even HE can’t get them out in 5 days! :smack:
-XT
[QUOTE=Bricker]
No fan I of Nancy Pelosi.
But c’mon. This is hardly a fair critique. Rushing headlong into any major change like this, a week into the Democrats’ control of Congress, would be utterly foolish. And Ms. Pelosi, while (in my view) wrong-headed about many basic policy issues, is not foolish.
Congress’ control of the purse-strings can be an effective tool to move the President, but it’s not a precision instrument. It doesn’t replace the President as C-in-C.
[/QUOTE]
Once again, Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid called on the President in August 2006, to begin redeploying of our troops by the end of 2006. Was that a headlong major change?
Gerald Ford was C-C in 1974 and still conducting a war in Vietnam, with our troops or not, and the Democrat Congress defunded the war.
[QUOTE=harveyc]
Yet Ms. Pelosi can rush through the 100 hours agenda asap without even mentioning our soldiers in Iraq. Plus, someone here said that that items in the 100 hours agenda have been previously debated, like the Iraq war hasn’t been for years now.
[/QUOTE]
Having read this entire thread, and understood what’s been said, I feel confident in suggesting that you are not arguing in good faith, but rather merely repeating your initial “thought” no matter what response it engenders.
This is not debating, it doesn’t even rise to the level of piss-poor arguing, no amount of reasoned replies, it appears, will shift you from your ludicrous cartoon-bubble stance, and to engage in further discussions with you is a waste of perfectly good electrons.
[QUOTE=xtisme]
You are sort of saying “If I drop this stone then its going to fall to the ground, despite my preference that it floats around. How sad.” If the people wanted the war stopped, then they would not have re-elected GW Bush for President (though I’m not so certain that if Kerry were president things would be much different wrt Iraq in any case). The reality of the situation is the Dems CAN NOT GET THE TROOPS OUT OF IRAQ AFTER 5 DAYS OF HAVING A RAZOR THIN MAJORITY IN CONGRESS. I know that this reality stuff is hard to accept for one so fervent, but there it is. The only one with the power and ability to get the troops out of Iraq in the short term is Bush…and even HE can’t get them out in 5 days! :smack:
-XT
[/QUOTE]
Our troops can be moved to secure bases and secure areas in Iraq subject to the redeployment schedule. No 5 days.
[QUOTE=harveyc]
Our troops can be moved to secure bases and secure areas in Iraq subject to the redeployment schedule. No 5 days.
[/QUOTE]
Sure they could…if the President ordered it. It would take more than 5 days to do so of course…that reality stuff again…but sure, it could be done. In fact, I WANT it to be done. This is what I would love to happen…for our forces to assume a much more defensive posture in preparation for pulling out sometime in the next 6 months or so. Doing this would take a few months, true (reality again), but I would love it if it happened. Unfortunately, Congress has no real say in doing this in the short term…only Bush can do it, and he’s not GOING to do it.
Seriously, you really need to go back through the thread and read what people have written in response to your OP. Try and set aside your incorrect assumptions and mind set and actually listen to what they are telling you. Give it a whirl.
-XT
[QUOTE=EddyTeddyFreddy]
Having read this entire thread, and understood what’s been said, I feel confident in suggesting that you are not arguing in good faith, but rather merely repeating your initial “thought” no matter what response it engenders.
This is not debating, it doesn’t even rise to the level of piss-poor arguing, no amount of reasoned replies, it appears, will shift you from your ludicrous cartoon-bubble stance, and to engage in further discussions with you is a waste of perfectly good electrons.
[/QUOTE]
I believe I have answered every question to the best of my ability with opinions from other independent references supporting what have have said. Instead of just throwing out generalizations, why don’t you give me some specific examples where I have not been responsive to other’s “thoughts.”
[QUOTE=xtisme]
Other posters have tried to convey this to the OP, but s/he seems stubornly sticking to the loony left talking points … .
[/QUOTE]
I actually question whether the OP **is ** a member of the loony left. His position seems to be more along the lines of “The Democrats are a bunch of hypocrites! They got elected after saying they’d do something about the war, but instead they’re spending their first 100 hours focusing on other liberal crap instead of immediately ending the war. They never really cared about the soldiers. They’re just using them to advance their liberal agenda.”
As evidence of his conservative leanings I cite the fact that he seems to believe the “stab in the back” version of the Vietnam War, i.e. that we would have won in Vietnam if Congress hadn’t cut the funding. That’s usually a far-right belief, not a far-left one.
How about it, harveyc? Where do you actually sit on the political spectrum? What’s your opinion of the other things that the Democrats are doing during the first 100 hours?
[QUOTE=harveyc]
Yet Ms. Pelosi can rush through the 100 hours agenda asap without even mentioning our soldiers in Iraq. Plus, someone here said that that items in the 100 hours agenda have been previously debated, like the Iraq war hasn’t been for years now.
[/QUOTE]
Ridiculous comparison. Items like stem cell research and a minimum wage increase enjoy something like 80 percent support, or better. Most people agree that the Iraq war was a mistake, but that doesn’t mean there’s agreement about how to end it or even what to do next. The other items have, I think, also been debated in Congress, which these other ideas haven’t been.
[QUOTE=harveyc]
I believe I have answered every question to the best of my ability with opinions from other independent references supporting what have have said. Instead of just throwing out generalizations, why don’t you give me some specific examples where I have not been responsive to other’s “thoughts.”
[/QUOTE]
Why don’t you go back and read the whole thread, this time paying attention to the actual, you know, arguments and facts and stuff everyone else has presented? Because nothing you’ve posted has in any way refuted any of it, and I’m not inclined to rehash what’s already been well said.
Waste of oxygen, waste of electrons, waste of time. And I swore thrift as a New Year’s resolution! Damn, failed already. I guess I’m no better than Speaker Pelosi. 
[QUOTE=Marley23]
How unpopular does it have to be before the public would support it, and the President pay attention?
I’d never heard anyone suggest this idea before, but right now I like it.
[/QUOTE]
John Warner (R-VA), of all people, suggested late last fall that we might should have a new AUMF for Iraq. But I think it was a momentary thought on his part, and nobody else seems to have taken it up.
I still think it’s the best course for the Dems right now, for its clarity if nothing else. There’s really only two other options I can see: (a) restrict Iraq spending (which I think Pelosi and friends can use to block the ‘surge’, but it would be politically hazardous to refuse to adequately fund the forces already there), and (b) impeachment, which is way too big a hammer just yet.
[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
(b) impeachment, which is way too big a hammer just yet.
[/QUOTE]
It also wouldn’t get the troops home in a week, or even change the short term posture of the troops already in Iraq. Even if the Dems could come up with a plausable reason to impeach Bush et al (they’d have to get Chaney too), it wouldn’t happen over night…or even this year. It would take too long. Simply put, there is no realistic or plausable way for the Dems in Congress, majority or no, to get the troops out of Iraq or to even change their current posture in the short term. They best they can do, as you pointed out in your A choice, would be to block additional funding that would allow for Bush’s ‘surge’, and then to pick away at the President in various other ways that may enable them to force him to a change in the medium or long term…which it seems is what they ARE doing (fancy that).
-XT
[QUOTE=Pochacco]
I actually question whether the OP **is ** a member of the loony left. His position seems to be more along the lines of "The Democrats are a bunch of hypocrites!
[/QUOTE]
Absolutely! I thought it was obvious, and I was being disingenuous when I suggested earlier that he should simply never vote for Pelosi or the Democrats ever again.
It seems consistent with the pit thread by duffer suggesting that the Democrats are betraying a promise to be bipartisan. Again, a promise only existing in the OP’s head which is held on to like a pit bull despite any manner of response.
I’m wondering if there isn’t a common source for these two arguments about the hypocritical failings of the Democrats.
[QUOTE=xtisme]
Sure they could…if the President ordered it. It would take more than 5 days to do so of course…that reality stuff again…but sure, it could be done. In fact, I WANT it to be done. This is what I would love to happen…for our forces to assume a much more defensive posture in preparation for pulling out sometime in the next 6 months or so. Doing this would take a few months, true (reality again), but I would love it if it happened. Unfortunately, Congress has no real say in doing this in the short term…only Bush can do it, and he’s not GOING to do it.
[/QUOTE]
I think Congress could do it, but there would have to be a credible threat of impeachment behind it for it to work.
Congress could demand that DoD provide it with an estimated budget for withdrawing our troops to the Green Zone and the Permanent Bases over the next six months, and withdrawal from country over the following six months - and then only budget that much money, with specific instructions that that’s what it was for.
The problem is that the only way to enforce it if Bush decides to ‘stay the course’ and uses the money for that, is impeachment. So if Congress has to decide what it’s willing to go to the mats over.
I think it’s worth doing, but I doubt that that many Congressional Dems would agree yet.
But one way or another, I expect 2007 will bring a moment (or several) where Congress says “do this” under their Article I authority, and Bush doesn’t. One would hope that the Dems would pick something serious to have the inevitable showdown over.
[QUOTE=harveyc]
But is was ok for Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid to call on the President to start redeploying our troops in 2006 within a few months and now they say nothing about getting our troops out of Iraq. That makes no sense. Plus, it is not a kook idea to cut off funding for the war. I don’t think Rep. Rangel, Rep. Kucinich and others in the anti-war caucus are kooks. They were elected by the people.
[/QUOTE]
Exactly what is complicated about this? They called on the president to withdraw the troops. The president DIDN’T DO IT. Would you prefer that they hadn’t asked him to? The speaker of the house is not the boss of the president.
[QUOTE=xtisme]
It also wouldn’t get the troops home in a week, or even change the short term posture of the troops already in Iraq. Even if the Dems could come up with a plausable reason to impeach Bush et al (they’d have to get Chaney too), it wouldn’t happen over night…or even this year. It would take too long. Simply put, there is no realistic or plausable way for the Dems in Congress, majority or no, to get the troops out of Iraq or to even change their current posture in the short term. They best they can do, as you pointed out in your A choice, would be to block additional funding that would allow for Bush’s ‘surge’, and then to pick away at the President in various other ways that may enable them to force him to a change in the medium or long term…which it seems is what they ARE doing (fancy that).
-XT
[/QUOTE]
If Congress wanted to (as it did in 1998-99), it could do the whole impeachment procedure in just a couple of months. I agree with you, though, that the Dems wouldn’t do that. As far as the rest of it goes, I think you’ve described the realities quite well.
[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
I think Congress could do it, but there would have to be a credible threat of impeachment behind it for it to work.
[/QUOTE]
And it wouldn’t be credible, without bipartisan support in the Senate, since the Senate is split 51-49 and you need a two-thirds majority to convict. The Pubs aren’t quite that disgusted with Bush . . . yet.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
I just want to say that, as a moderate centrist, I find friend Bricker’s call for impeachment a bit radical. But, bless his heart, he means well!
[/QUOTE]
Uh… thanks.
[QUOTE=harveyc]
So if I might take the liberty to summarize what you said, we are going to allow more brave US soldiers to die in Iraq because of politics … and peolple accept this. How sad.
[/QUOTE]
You call it politics, we call it the fucking Constitution of the United States.
See, under the fucking Constitution of the United States, the president is commander-in-chief of the military. That means he gives his orders to the generals, and they obey the orders. The Speaker of the House cannot give orders to the generals. She is not in the chain of command. It’s a simple concept, really.
She could call for impeachment of the President, but that would just replace Bush with Cheney…so she’d have to impeach both of them. And there’s no consensus for impeachment…yet. So impeachment as a “first 100 hours” measure fails.
The fucking Constitution of the United States gives the House of Representatives control over appropriations. That means that Speaker Pelosi could cut funding for the Iraq war. Ah, then Bush would have to withdraw! Except there’s so much money in the Department of Defense, that it would be possible to fund the Iraq war by taking money from other things. And it would take months for the money to begin to run out. And besides that, she wouldn’t neccesarily have the support of all the Democrats. Because cutting funding for the military would be a pretty radical step and it would have unforseeen consequences, especially since it is very unlikely that it would actually work. And remember, the President can VETO any legislation, and it requires a supermajority to override a Presidential veto…a supermajority the Democrats don’t have.
Do you want to hear for the next 20 years how we could have won in Iraq, but the Democrats stabbed our brave soldiers in the back?
The Democrats DO have lots of things that they CAN do about the Iraq war, but none of those things are the type that can be done in the first 100 hours of power. They can hold hearings, force generals and appointees to either tell the truth about how the Iraq war was screwed up or perjure themselves. The Senate can refuse to confirm appointees that don’t acknowlege reality in Iraq. They can pass resolutions telling the President that he’s screwing up. They can go on the national media and explain to the American people how the Iraq war isn’t working.
But what they can’t do is get on the phone to the Pentagon and order them to bring the troops back. They don’t have that authority, any more than I do. And cutting funding for our brave men and women in uniform would be political suicide.
The things you can do in your first 100 hours are things that there is already a solid consensus for, things where you don’t have to compromise on because only a small fringe disagrees. Kneecapping the military with a disasterous funding cut is not one of those things. And to compare it to the defunding of the Vietnam war is disingenous, because by the time the war was defunded we no longer had any brave men and women in uniform over there…we had pulled out. If we had no servicepeople in Iraq, and Maliki’s government was tottering, cutting funds meant to prop him up a bit longer would be analgous. But we still have American soldiers over there, so it isn’t.