CQ TODAY MIDDAY UPDATE
Dec. 13, 2007 – 1:34 p.m.
Pelosi Says She Miscalculated GOP Determination on Iraq
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., admitted Thursday that she had underestimated the willingness of Republicans to stand behind President Bush’s Iraq policy despite the drubbing the GOP took in the polls in 2006.
“The assumption I made was that the Republicans would soon see the light,” she said. Instead, the minority stuck to the president’s war policy in the face of unrelenting pressure from congressional Democrats and powerful lobbying campaigns by anti-war groups.
Bush has consistently refused to accept any limitations on his authority to direct military operations in Iraq, or on funds destined for the war effort. Democrats have been unable to muster enough votes to force him to accept a timetable for withdrawal of combat troops or a change in their mission in Iraq.
“That was a revelation to me, because I felt the American peoples’ voices were so strong and still are in this regard that I hoped that with some compromise and reaching out there might be some change in direction,” Pelosi said. “But they are sticking with the president on this.”
Democrats thus are ending their first year in power without producing the major Iraq policy change that had been a major selling point to voters in 2006.
“The grassroots are justifiably disappointed and I am too that we have not done more to end this war,” Pelosi said.
Republicans say the Democrats’ effort to force a withdrawal from Iraq has run out of steam because of the success of this year’s “surge” strategy of sending in some 30,000 extra U.S. combat troops to help quell violence. They point to the decline in Iraqi and American casualties as proof the new strategy is working and say it should be allowed to continue to work.
Comments
Pelosi doesn't have to authorize a dime for the war. The House has always had the power to appropriate money *for a purpose*, which can be purely for withdrawal expenses. Pleas of impotence aren't credible.
If the Dems refuse to appropriate funds it will look like they sabotaged the surge which was "working." All they can say is that militarily it is working to some extent, but that the political situation has not changed.
The Democrats' downfall is pure and simple: It's cowardice.
Hey Democrats let Hillary know that you can actually REDUCE TAXES BY TWO THIRDS (2/3) and not raise them for decades and pay for all programs, however porky they maybe, by nationalizing all of the ill-gotten assets, stolen from you and me the citizen, by Big Oil, Insurance Companies (they cherry pick their clients from illegally obtained Data-Mined family medical histories and willingly give insurance coverage for Chemotherapy to people who have harmless or normal trace amounts of cancer cells in their biopsies), Pharmaceutical Corporations (they steal R&D from our tax funded Universities anyway), G.E. (they control the mainstream media), and other monopolies like Monsanto (they feed us nutrition depleted crap that has started to alter human genes), etc. Close all those privatized prisons aided and abetted by extremist conservative bigoted appointee Judges (who prey on our taxes by increasingly wrongfully jailing minorities and pot smokers). How times has it to be proven deregulation and privatization makes every Conservative is nothing less than a Corrupt White Collar Criminal stealing billions perhaps trillions of dollars from the nation, whereas, ordinary criminals are responsible for stealing a few millions. Tax the assets of churches who preach politically (and who feed ludicrous End Times fantasy stories to the unemployed and depressed victims of outsourcing) and don't forget their phony so-called schools, colleges and universities (remember Monica Goodling who ran the Attorney Generals Office, and other so-called supposed graduates like Dijon Lomborgh all of whom actually failed in the regular education system and now suppress the legitimate work of scientists like those in N.A.S.A., F.D.A., E.P.A., etc. (by nepotism and by federal bureaucratic implanting). Stop paying unregulated and unaccountable criminal corporations, like the Halliburton's, Blackwater's, and D.O.D., twenty times what we pay our Volunteer Heroes and Heroines. We know that kids volunteer for army service for the promise of access to the ever increasingly elusive right to a decent education, that is, if they make it out of there alive and are not brain damaged. Their parents lost their house by deregulated sub prime mortgages therefore unable to pay for their kid's education. Corporations and Conservatives are the real extremist terrorists who want to kill Americans. Bin Ladin doesn't come close to these criminals who get to prey on us everyday. And we the sheep keep feeding their implanted Saudi Royalty who now wants to buy US assets like DOW JONES, or, the Ports with our money, and on and on. End the Cycle, tune Hillary in, radically change everything, vote or DO SOMETHING ...ANYTHING.
"Pelosi Says She Miscalculated GOP Determination on Iraq" This statement from Nancy Pelosi, the mother of five and grandmother of 7(?) is unacceptable, to say the least! The voters fully knew and totally understood the republican agenda when they participated in the 2006 elections! What the majority of American People want, what We The People DEMANDED when we voted democrats into the majority in BOTH HOUSES of congress was to vote for change, to elect SOMEONE who would and could FULLY ANTICIPATE the republican party's agenda and SHUT IT DOWN. That the House Leader "miscalculated" as an excuse for this last year's inaction is unacceptable. Upon discovering that she "miscalculated", it is and WAS her job to RECALCULATE IMMEDIATELY; to make the necessary adjustments and to accomplish the Will of The People! End the Iraq war and rein in the Bush administration. Because Pelosi made a miscalculation DOES NOT CHANGE the stated mandate! Nancy Peolsi needs to accomplish this immediately, AS IN NOW, OR give the position to someone who will!! (Chris Dodd comes to mind.) That would be a call to Pelosi to STEP DOWN and let us have as House Speaker someone who can effect the demanded changes! Merry Christmas to all of us! On a side note, I, like many American women, am heartbroken and discouraged that our first female house speaker has failed so miserably, and I am sick to be calling now for her to stand aside and give the position to an effective leader. There is THAT, and it will go down in history as THAT. I cannot in my 55 years recall a bigger squandered opportunity in the message for women everywhere. I am heartsick at the pathetic show for women on our planet to have her say that SHE "miscalculated"!!!!! Enough is enough. Get it done, or GET OUT! When voting doesn't work, we are NOT America anymore. Shelley Garcia Cortez, CO
IMPEACH, IMPEACH, IMPEACH, IMPEACH, IMPEACH!!! These faux democrats, like Pelosi, Clinton et al, are no better than the republicans they condemn!
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