Post-Veto - What Now?

Over at TPMCafe, Greg Sargent has a posting looking at the plans the Democrats have post-veto. He points out that the Democrats are looking at two different plans:

(1) Sending Bush a short-term funding bill and forcing him to keep asking for more war funding -- the option favored by John Murtha.

(2) Sending him a full funding bill without withdrawal timetables but with benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet and with troop readiness standards. This is the option that Dem leadership aides are reportedly beginning to coalesce around, though one Hill staffer I spoke with said he wasn't sure that there was much momentum behind it just yet.

Each has pros and cons. For instance Sargent has a Democratic aid saying of the first option:

"The pros are that you keep your Democratic caucus more or less where it is. In essence, you're saying, `Fine, you're getting your money, but you're on a short leash.' You're not getting a blank check. You're forcing GOP members to go on record funding the war. You're forcing the GOP members to stand with the President."

"One of the cons is that some of the people who will also be taking heat for the vote would be moderate Blue Dog Dems, who would vote for it. Also, it would be pretty close to a `clean' bill. It certainly wouldn't have any sort of timeline or limitations on the President."

And on the second option:

"The pros are that you avoid being perceived as withholding money from the troops. So you deprive the President of that platform to stand on. Because GOP members are now making noise about supporting this benchmarks approach, you'd have the first kind of wedge between the White House and Congressional Republicans."

"The cons are that you're gonna alienate liberal members and the antiwar Democratic base. Democratic leaders would also be undermining their own language about giving the President a blank check. And potentially, you'd be giving a fig leaf to vulnerable Republicans who otherwise would be vulnerable in the Fall elections by allowing them to say that they're doing something to hold the administration and the Iraqi government accountable."

Here's Senator Feingold on what to do post-Veto:

The next step to ending the war isn't to give in, but to step up the pressure on the President. I'm pleased to be working with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on a bill to end our open-ended military commitment in Iraq. Now that the President has rejected the will of the American people with this veto, our bill, or some other proposal to end funding for a failed policy, should be the next step to end the war.

We are in the middle of a real test for the new Democratic Congress. No matter what Washington insiders say about cutting a deal or scoring political points, we need to hang tough to get our troops out of Iraq. The President has refused to budge on his Iraq policy from the beginning -- he has repeatedly gotten his way, and our country has paid a terrible price for that. Today, 150,000 U.S. troops are in the middle of a civil war that is straining our military, and hurting our ability to go after al Qaeda worldwide. Too much is at stake for us to back down -- the new Congress has got to stand firm. It's a time to listen to the American people and finally start to bring our troops out of Iraq. Their lives and our national security depend on it.

And this from Presidential Candidate John Edwards:

Somehow the message needs to register across the smoggy consciousness of our obstinate Commander Guy that he's not the King, he's only the President. The Founding Fathers planned out a government of checks and balances and by design the Congress is a check on the President's power. They gave the power of the purse strings to Congress for precisely this situation - to stop a stubborn President from sending troops into a war that the People don't want.

He's got to learn that that since he's no longer dealing with a rubber stamp Republican legislature that put party above country and let him have whatever he wanted, he's just going to have to start dealing with a Congress that was elected, in no small part, to end his bloody war. It's what the people want.

I'm all for anything that teaches dubya that lesson. Put him on a tight leash, send him the same budget over and over again, whatever. Just keep up the pressure - and for God's sakes don't back down.

Dubya's approval ratings are in the toilet, why treat him as if he has any political capital left? He's a failure, his administration is a failure, and the Republicans who still cling to him, hoping his long-gone coat-tails will somehow return are doing so at their own electoral peril (remember Rick Santorum?).