Democrats Newly Willing to Compromise on Iraq

After short-circuiting consideration of votes on some bipartisan proposals on Iraq before the August break, senior Democrats now say they are willing to rethink their push to establish a withdrawal deadline of next spring if doing so will attract the 60 Senate votes needed to prevail. Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said, "If we have to make the spring part a goal, rather than something that is binding, and if that is able to produce some additional votes to get us over the filibuster, my own inclination would be to consider that." Democrats would need to lure the 60 senators in order to cut off a likely Republican filibuster.

Spring, eh?

Isn't April the new September? April is in the Spring.

The emerging proposal by Mr. Levin and Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, would still order the administration to begin pulling at least some combat troops out of Iraq, probably by the end of the year. It is not clear what other provisions the measure may include.

"We'll see", the game my parents played with me as a child, is the game being played by Bush, the GOP, and the Democratic Leadership. And it looks to me that, despite all the "we're working hard against the GOP" rhetoric, they plan to go right along with whatever words spill out of Petraeus's pie hole.

Petraeus is the new Tenet, apparently, so his words will be used to make the decisions, which will doubtlessly turn out wrong, because the ENTIRE goal - for the GOP, at least - is to STAY IN IRAQ. They have no intention of leaving.

And for whatever reason, the Democratic Leadership appears to be committed to investing the effort to aid them while appearing to "keep pressure on them" the whole time.

Mr. Reid and other Democrats said they would continue to press their preferred approach of setting a date to have most combat troops out of Iraq even while pursuing a compromise with Republicans. Party strategists say that withdrawal is a top priority of the party’s anti-war base and that polls continue to show that much of the public favors a withdrawal from Iraq.

It's clear they know what we want.It's less clear that they genuinely intend to do anything other than placate us while they leave things just as they are.

More and more it has the appearance of a charade. Posturing and rhetoric and footdragging and stalling and goalpost moving, and distractions and new requests for more time and more money.

They have NO intention of bringing troops home, no intention of stopping the illegal occupation that is ruining America.

Maybe Harry IS trying to bring troops home - I cannot really tell anymore, such is the disconnect between words and actions.

Either we have a voice or we don't.

So far, our demands are ignored. We have heard whining from Democratic leadership about our anger towards their FISA cave-in but I do not believe for a moment that this is a "motivational level of pain".

I think it's lip service at best. Possibly lip service uttered in hopes of us backing off, leaving them alone and continuing to send them money (which should stop, really).

So..no. Our demands have yet to be addressed, let alone met.

The message should be "Screw Petraeus" and whatever he has to say. We've known for months he's just going to regurgitate what he's been told to regurgitate and the White House has written what he is to say. Its a fucking farce and pretty much YOU ALL KNOW THAT.

We demand the troops be extracted and brought home and we aren't getting it.

We demand an end to the illegal occupation, and we aren't getting it.

We demand impeachment proceedings against Dick Cheney and George Bush for forcing us into this debacle, but - you guessed it! - we ain't getting it.

Protest, dammit!

So, honestly, this whole writing exercise was about today's Phone Protest. I am very displeased that a simple and direct protest action gets far less attention than some fucked-up gay repub. Who cares?

The Democratic Leadership needs a giant fire lit under their asses TODAY.

They have reported feeling the pain of our bitter feedback about their FISA capitulation, so you KNOW they are getting our feedback. I am unsure how much it motivates them to make the decisions we elected (read "hired") to make.

It's called "Representation", I think. We elect people to go to our Capitol and place votes that reflect what WE want. Not what the President wants or what the Republicans want, or even what Harry or Nancy themselves want.

They are to do what we want. That's they whole point of America: No taxation without representation, remember?

Phones, Faxes and E-mails.

Harry Reid Phone: 202-224-3542

Fax: 202-224-7327

NO conventional e-mail. Use his contact page



John Conyers Phone: (202) 225-5126

Fax: (202) 225-0072

e-mail: john.conyers@mail.house.gov



Nancy Pelosi Phone: (202) 225-4965

Fax: (202) 225-8259

e-mail: AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov

Call them repeatedly.

I have wanted to get a bit more support for this here at the "Activist" site but people seem too preoccupied with poll numbers of presidential wannabes and gay republicans. It's not really addressing the crises at hand, but what do I know? Perhaps Obama would bring the troops home before 2010. The problem is they never should have been there to begin with, and the occupation is illegal and killing innocent people.

Plus Bush HAS to be damaged. Impeached, tarred - something. He cannot be allowed to complete his "term". If he complets his term it's as good as saying everything he did is OK with you and me and thats BULLSHIT.

Perhaps Chris Floyd is right:

The Republic you wanted -- and at one time might have had the power to take back -- is finished. You no longer have the power to keep it; it's not there. It was kidnapped in December 2000, raped by the primed and ready exploiters of 9/11, whored by the war pimps of the 2003 aggression, gut-knifed by the corrupters of the 2004 vote, and raped again by its "rescuers" after the 2006 election. Beaten, abused, diseased and abandoned, it finally died. We are living in its grave. The annus horribilis of 2007 has turned out to be a year of triumph for the Bush Faction -- the hit men who delivered the coup de grâce to the long-moribund Republic. Bush was written off as a lame duck after the Democrat's November 2006 election "triumph" (in fact, the narrowest of victories eked out despite an orgy of cheating and fixing by the losers), and the subsequent salvo of Establishment consensus from the Iraq Study Group, advocating a de-escalation of the war in Iraq. Then came a series of scandals, investigations, high-profile resignations, even the criminal conviction of a top White House official. But despite all this -- and abysmal poll ratings as well -- over the past eight months Bush and his coupsters have seen every single element of their violent tyranny confirmed, countenanced and extended.

Are we dead yet?

We do appear to be just coasting along on momentum for now but from the social services safety net to the bridges and levees and other infrastructure, I see America crumbling before my eyes.

So.. are you going to call or not?

If nothing else, would you keep me company?