More veto theater

I'm just getting to the news today and I see competing themes are swirling around the Democrats next move on the military funding bill. The WaPo claims the Democratic leadership has already backed down and offered to concede the withdrawal timeline. Pelosi's office hotly denies this claim but doesn't offer any clues to what they're planning to do. They're still considering the possibilities. Read that to mean nobody knows what to do next and they're all consulting their oracles.

I think Big Tent Democrat gets it right on this one.

All this DRAMA about whether the Dems backed down is funny. But the need to end the Iraq War is not. The Reid-Feingold framework which, for those of you just tuning in, does NOT require passage of a bill, is the way out. Announce April 1, 2008 as the date certain for NOT funding the war. Forget about strings, conditions, benchmarks and goals. None of that matter to Bush.

Close the purse. Say it now so you can do it then.

That seems to be a practical approach to me. The bill had no teeth in the first place. It was all show and no substance and offered Bush seven ways to Sunday to get around its provisions. And besides, even if they passed a real bill, Bush would just ignore it. He would just issue a signing statement saying it doesn't apply to the Imperial President.

Of course, that will still require those elusive moderate Republicans to put aside their partisan interests and join in a true joint effort. I have my doubts that it will ever happen. In fact if any of these politicians on either side of the fence were truly willing to put the good of the nation over their own self-interests, they would quit dicking around with political theater and start impeachment proceedings against both Bush and Cheney immediately. Their policies are ruining us.

I understand that would put Pelosi in the Oval office but if you think about it, that would be a greater risk to the Democrats than the GOP. If Bush and Cheney aren't impeached, the GOP can write off the White House for the next four years anyway for sticking with them. On the other hand, if Pelosi screws up in the less than two years that would remain in the term, the GOP have some hope of riding an anti-Democrat blowback. The worst that could happen is that Pelosi does a great job and restores our status as a respected world power. With stakes like that, I can't believe they're not going for it.