I was disappointed in the Democrats for sending Bush an Iraq funding bill without deadlines, but I wasn’t terribly hard on them because of the prospect for a different result in September. There’s been a number of signs that by September many Republicans will abandon Bush on Iraq. The latest comes from Rich Lowry of The National Review. Lowry writes, “Was talking to an influential Republican strategist who thinks if Iraq looks the way it does now in September, Bush will lose about 25 Senate Republicans on a bill with some sort of timetable for withdrawal.”
At the time of the last vote, the Democrats did not have the votes to over ride a Bush veto. There was a strong case for continuing to pass similar legislation, giving Bush the option of either signing or ultimately having no funds approved. There were political down sides to this too. If the Democrats could really have the votes to over ride a veto in September, it would make sense to wait until then to pass a veto-proof funding bill requiring withdrawal from Iraq.
We’ll have to see what happens in September. It might have made sense to wait in light of various signs that many Republicans will change their position by then. If this does not happen, I see no alternative but for the Democrats to give Bush a choice of signing a bill with a timetable for withdrawal or to have no funding at all.
