On Iraq, a showdown is all but inevitable

[babylonsister]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-assess29mar29,1,4139526,full.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage&ctrack=1&cset=true

On Iraq, a showdown is all but inevitable
The Senate is to vote today on President Bush's ability to conduct the war.
By Maura Reynolds, Times Staff Writer
March 29, 2007

WASHINGTON — With the Senate poised today to vote to restrict President Bush's ability to conduct the war in Iraq, the White House and Congress are careening toward their biggest policy confrontation in more than a decade.

The last such head-on collision between the branches of government was in 1994, when a newly elected Republican Congress took aim at a Democratic president and eventually forced the shutdown of the federal government.

This time, a newly elected Democratic Congress is taking on a Republican president in an effort to force a drawdown in an increasingly unpopular war.

At the moment, neither side has much incentive to compromise, because the war is a signature issue for both. The president has wagered his legacy on the outcome of his decision to invade Iraq, and Democrats owe their control of Congress largely to voters angered by the war's deepening losses.

"I don't think either one can afford to back down, and that leads to the inevitable," said David Gergen, a veteran political strategist who has served as a top advisor to presidents of both parties.

The inevitable is a long-threatened presidential veto of a bill that would provide funds for the war but would lay out a timetable for withdrawal.

When it comes, Bush's veto is expected to leave each side accusing the other of perfidy: The president will accuse Congress of cutting off funds for troops in the middle of the battlefield, and Democratic leaders will accuse Bush of stubbornly ignoring the will of the American people, the true needs of the troops and the raw power of common sense.

more...

[Lobster Martini]

1. What on earth do the National Cattlemen have to do with foreign policy?

I had planned to write something else, but then I reread the article:

Speaking to the National Cattlemen's Beef Assn., Bush called on members of Congress to "stop making political statements and start providing vital funds for our troops."

Why the bloody hell is W. making foreign policy speeches to the beef association? Are we going to bomb Baghdad with cows?

[babylonsister]

2. Nothing; that's probably one of the few orgs. lately that the dim one

had been invited to speak at. He had a platform, he used it.