I guess we’d better get that “War Czar” position filled, lickety-split! 
LilShieste
Bullshit that the Dems are funding the troops. What funding bill has been signed into law?
Their only choice is to pass a bill that the President will sign, or to pass their own (pork-filled) version with enough of a majority to sustain a veto. They have done neither.
Pork isn’t the only way to get Republicans to vote responsibly:
Dems Will Prevail on Iraq War Funding
The will of the people can be a Bitch.
Pork filled. heh.
Yeah, how dare those rascally Democrats add 3.4 billion dollars for veteran care facilities:
Or to increase funding for military families, or port security, or airport bomb detection. Seems like opposing this funding bill, Bush isn’t supporting the troops, and is soft on national defense in the war on terror. How do you feel about these issues?
Gosh, if only there was a singular man who had the courage and authority to sign that bill into law.
Then we wouldn’t have this problem!
-Joe
The presence of United States troops on the edge of the disputed territory furthest from the Mexican settlements was not sufficient to raise hostilities,.We were sent to provoke a fight,but it was essential that Mexico ccse it.it was doubtful whether congress would declare war, but if Mexico should attack our… troops the executive could announce…Wheras war exists by the acts of etc. and prosecute the contest with vigor. Once initiated there were but few public men who would have the courage to oppose it.Experience proves that the man who obstructs a war in which his nation is engaged ,no matter whether right or wrong, occupies no inviable place in history. Better for him ,individually,to advocate war pestilence and famine than to act as obstructionist in a war already begun.the history of the defeated rebel will be honorable hereafter,compared with the man who aided him conspiring with against his government while protected by it.The most favorable posthumous history the stay at home traitor can hope for is oblivion.
U.S. Grant
Get it started and you can count on political backing even if undeserved.
Thinkprogress appears to be making a direct quote, and provides a source. That source does not substantiate the quote. Therefore I do not accept the quote
I would say that the burden to substantiate is on the party doing the quoting. Thinkprogress has failed to do so.
I don’t know. Both Thinkprogress and yourself have failed to provide a link or context showing from where the quote derived. Show me such context, and I can comment on its accuracy.
I don’t think a czar will facilitate “victory” and I’m sure one won’t decrease the about of planning needed for withdrawal nor will one additional person speed it up.
This illustrates what I meant in another post about “the big lie.” The President has repeated the “don’t support the troops” line so often that you appear to actually believe it. Both Houses have passed bills that are now in conference, or soon will be, that provide the financial support in plenty of time. And the red herring about pork in the bill is disgusting. That’s not at all why GW threatens a veto and to claim so is disingenuous at least and a damned lie at worst.
Do you really think Democrats invented pork in Iraq appropriations bills? Here is a blog from 2005 when Republicans were in charge of Congress complaining about pork in Iraq spending bills. My understanding from what I’ve read is that there has been extraneous earmarks (pork projects) in every Iraq spending bill since the outset. GW hasn’t vetoed a single one of them.
Some must find bullshit tasty because they gulp down every fork full of it that GW hands out.
And, by the way, during all those pork filled Republican years, Democrats didn’t object even once. Shame on them.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Scylla and Carol Stream for doing all they can to help pull down the pants of the Republican party. If not for them and their ilk, we might actually be suffering through that permanent Republican majority that some envisioned not very long ago.
If the current administration did not have lickspittles like them to lap up everything handed to them, to willingly clean the santorum from the shaft of the president as he finishes anal raping the country, perhaps their true perfidy would not be as evident as it is today. You folks have my gratitude.
Okay, I know it is not fair to suggest that the president would have santorum on his shaft when he finishes with us. He would never bother to use lube.
Cheeze Louise, Hentor, don’t keep it all bottled up, tell us how you really feel.
It appears you’ve never taken a 7th Grade government class. It isn’t Congress’s job to SIGN the bill, you stupid bitch, it’s their job to write it, which they did. I’ll explain it to you like the five-year-old which you are. Congress has passed a spending bill which fully funds the troops. It’s the monkey’s job to sign it or veto it. If the monkey wants to veto it, then it’s the MONKEY who is refusing to fund the troops, not Congress.
Jesus Tittysucking Christ. You don’t even know what the dispute is ABOUT. It’s not about “pork”, you ignorant, mouthbreathing dittohead (and FYI, your monkey overlord is one of the most profligate spenders who has ever soiled the Oval Office), it’s about Congress setting a deadline to begin troop withdrawal from Iraq, something most Americans whole-heartedly support and which is most of the reason the country put the Dems in charge in the first place.
Their “choice”, oh ignorant one, is to write the fucking bill they were elected to write. Their job is done. They want to save American lives, your monkey wants to keep taking them in order to sate his ego. Why do people like you have such low regard for people in uniform? Why do their lives and welfare mean so little to you? Why do you have such contempt for them? What did the troops ever do to you?
If it isn’t signed, just who is it who hasn’t signed it? :dubious: Isn’t that person responsible for the results of his (in)action? Yes, I know it isn’t quite yet on his desk.
You may have forgotten your junior high school Civics class, but let me remind you that the legislative branch does not report to the executive - they both report to the People. Yes, there’s a game of chicken here. This Congress is looking to restore the checks and balances that the last several abdicated, for one thing. For another, they’re trying to put this mess under adult supervision, just as We the People hired them to do.
*Bush * has 2 choices - to go along with withdrawing from his war voluntarily and gradually and in a reasonably managed manner, with his signature and acquiescence, or doing it precipitously instead, without them.
But our involvement in the Iraqi civil war is over, it’s just a matter of months now. The insurgency has been in its “last throes” for 2 years now, and that’s long enough, isn’t it?
The Gates presser, btw, made it clear that this policy change is due to the simple lack of numbers in the military at present, following years of GOP congressional supinity, not from any funding cut that hasn’t even happened yet, and, if Bush has his way, won’t even happen at all. But some of you people will believe anything.
Thank you. That’s an excellent source. It confirms exactly what I said. At no point in there did Gates claim that the announcement was supposed to be delayed so that Bush could “claim it(extended employment) was their(Democrats) fault.”
As I had guessed, the quote is a pure fabrication.
What Gates actually said on the topic was:
" In terms of why we’re announcing it simultaneously with the unit commanders, I’ll be very blunt. Some very thoughtless person in this building made the unilateral decision yesterday to deny the Army the opportunity to notify unit commanders who could then talk to their troops 48 hours before we made a public announcement. And I can’t tell you how angry it makes many of us that one individual would create potentially so much hardship not only for our service men and women, but their families, by giving – by letting them read about something like this in the newspapers. "
Do you really beleive that Gates said he was angry the news got leaked because Bush wanted to claim it was the Democrats’ fault?
I read it pretty carefully, but I supposed I might have missed that part. Perhaps you can look and show me the quote Thinkprogress uses to fabricate er… demonstrate their case.
OTOH, in the case to which you refer, Abe Lincoln’s political career somehow survived.
I think you are a faux cynic. A real cynic wouldn’t be so angry over what could be, after all, predicted from the 30% who still have faith in the Bumbler in Chief. 
Oh, I don’t know. I seem to recall Shrub saying in the run up to the 2000 election that he had no plans to invade Iraq, and that the last thing he intended for his Administration to do was “nation building.” At least he kept that campaign promise.
No one said he did, you maroon. From the OP:
It was a
[quote from a blogger]
(http://atrios.blogspot.com/) that expressed that suspicion, not Gates.
But if it makes it easier to close your eyes to the truth, rave on, you magnificent loon.
No one ever claimed otherwise. Even were it true, I would no more expect a direct, bald declaration that I would expect him to stuff a hand grenade up his Nixon and pull the pin.
What he confirmed that is of relevence is that the story was leaked, that there was an intent to delay the announcement. The reasons he offers are plausible, as are our suspicions. I am perfectly willing to accept that our suspicions have no more proof than his explanations.
It is also possible that when GeeDubya spoke, he was entirely unaware that such a decision was even under consideration, that he was merely prescient and foreboding, warning that the folly of the Dems would lead to increased strain on our troops. The delightful Ms Perino (whose press conferences increasingly remind me of a blonde trying to cute her way out of a parking ticket…) was stuck walking the tightrope between a)the President was ignorant and b) the President is a lying sack.
But the only thing Sec Gates quote testifies is that the decision had been made and process of implementation had begun, at least so far as determing how to proceed, if not when. As I said, his stated reasoning has some plausibility. All I have to believe is that he believed that the briefings will go all the way down the chain without anyone telling thier wives they ain’t coming home. That’s all. Not much.
The will of the people is that President Bush is the CIC, not Nancy Pelosi, not Harry Reid, nor any of the other 535 nitwits in Congress.