Monday, October 22, 2007

Haven't we heard this song before?

From CNN:

The Bush administration on Monday asked for an additional $42.3 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the 2008 request for total war funding to $189.3 billion.

The request comes on top of $147 billion already sought for in the wars. Most of the money goes to Iraq, which is costing the Pentagon an estimated $2 billion a week.

"Parts of this war are complicated, but one part is not -- and that is that America should do what it takes to support our troops and protect our people," President Bush said in an appearance with members of veterans groups at the White House.

[...]

Minutes after Bush spoke, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, warned the president not to expect Congress to "rubber-stamp" the latest request.

"In the coming weeks, we will hold it up to the light of day and fight for the change of strategy and redeployment of troops that is long overdue," Reid said.

He said the new request means the overall cost of the widely unpopular war now approaches $650 billion since the March 2003 invasion that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

"The entire war in Iraq is being paid for with borrowed money," Reid said.
Blah, blah, blah...no blank check...blah, blah, blah...change course in Iraq...blah, blah, blah. Where have we heard this before? Oh, yeah. Nancy Pelosi said it when she took over as Speaker of the House back in January, and Harry Reid repeated it this past April. And what did they do? They wrote Bush another blank check to stay the course in Iraq. So what's changed between then and now besides a lot more death and destruction, and the federal deficit growing by a few hundred billion dollars? Why should we think the outcome will be any different this time around? I mean, it's not like Congress is trying to pass bills to provide retroactive immunity to Big Telecoms for illegally assisting the Bush administration in its warrantless spying program or anything. And they spent all that time and effort to restore Habeas Corpus. No, wait...that's not right.

I'm sorry, but I've totally lost faith in the current Democratic party and will not believe anything they say until they show some actual results. Why the hell are they wasting time on a non-binding resolution to condemn something that happened in a foreign country almost 100 years ago while ignoring the huge problems we're facing today? The fact that Democrats can't pass popular legislation like S-CHIP despite overwhelming support from the people indicates a serious leadership problem. I will continue to vote for Democratic candidates until the Republican party is a footnote in the history books (or the United States is, whichever comes first), but the Democrats I will vote for will be the ones who stand up for the people.

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