Mind Games

by digby


Atrios flags this nice Grover Norquist quote from Garance Franke-Ruta and, correctly I think, notes that it doesn't mean the base wants to leave Iraq. It just means they will go along with whatever Bush wants to do. In other words, Bush isn't being obstinate about Iraq because he's afraid that his base will desert him. He's not running, neither is Cheney, and neither one of them appear to particularly care about the fortunes of the Republican party. He's obstinate about Iraq for purely personal, philosophical reasons that have little to do with politics at this point.

So he is not subject to normal political pressure. As Norquist says, the base will stick with him come hell or high water. (I believe it's a mistake, however, to think it has anything to do with him personally --- the base of the Republican party are authoritarians who will blindly follow their leader no matter who he is, which is why they need to be kept away from the brown shirt section of Macy's.) This is now a mind game between the Democrats and Bush/Cheney. The Republicans in congress are nearly irrelevant except to the extent a couple of them can help get legislation passed and feed the GOP disarray. All negotiations going forward will necessarily be strategized with that in mind.

So this is very interesting:

Reid opens new war front

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Monday that he was backing legislation to cut off almost all money for the war in Iraq by next March, further escalating the Democratic confrontation with President Bush over the 4-year-old conflict.

The move comes after the Senate and House narrowly passed emergency war spending bills last month that set timelines for withdrawing U.S. troops. Neither measure proposed to cut funding for the war.

Reid, who will co-sponsor the bill with outspoken war critic Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), has never backed legislation that would use congressional control of the budget to stop paying for the war.

He almost certainly will have a difficult time rounding up a majority of votes for a bill that could leave Democrats open to charges of abandoning the troops.

But it means that Reid, who has endorsed increasingly bold steps to end the war, will be able to steer the Senate into another debate that highlights Republican support for the president's unpopular war.


President Pissypants responds:

President Bush, calling Democratic congressional leaders "irresponsible'' for debating a war-spending bill containing timelines for withdrawal from Iraq that he is certain to veto, suggested today that they should stop their "political dance'' and "get down to business'' in the funding of frontline troops.

If the standoff over a $100-billion-plus supplemental budget for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan goes into May, the president said, the Army will have to consider extending the deployments of soldiers already at war while training of new forces and repair of military equipment is jeopardized by a lack of funding.

Counting the 57th day since he delivered his bid for additional war-spending to Congress, the president said during an impromptu Rose Garden press conference that congressional leaders should rush their bill to his desk so that he can promptly veto it and get on with a new spending bill.

"In a time of war, it's irresponsible for the Democrat leadership in... Congress to delay for months on end while our troops in combat are waiting for the funds,'' Bush said.



And Reid fires back:

Washington, DC—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, released the following statement today after comments made by President Bush at the White House:

The President today asked the American people to trust him as he continues to follow the same failed strategy that has drawn our troops further into an intractable civil war. The President's policies have failed and his escalation endangers our troops and hurts our national security. Neither our troops nor the American people can afford this strategy any longer.

Democrats will send President Bush a bill that gives our troops the resources they need and a strategy in Iraq worthy of their sacrifices. If the President vetoes this bill he will have delayed funding for troops and kept in place his strategy for failure.



Meanwhile, we find out that the "57 day delay" that Junior was squealing about is actually happening at warp speed compared to the last congress which was so busy counting its ill gotten gains, covering up for child predators and trying to stay out of jail that they could hardly take the time to pass a supplemental at all:

During the reign of the Do-Nothing 109th Congress, Bush submitted two major supplemental spending requests. Each request experienced a delay far more than 57 days with hardly a peep of anger from the Commander-In-Chief. Details below:

February 14, 2005: Bush submits $82 billion supplemental bill
May 11, 2005: Bush signs the supplemental
Total time elapsed: 86 days

February 16, 2006: Bush submits $72 billion supplemental bill
June 15, 2006: Bush signs the supplemental
Total time elapsed: 119 days

After the 119 day delay, Bush did not say an “irresponsible” Congress had “undercut the troops” or that military families had “paid the price of failure.” Instead, Bush told the conservative-led Congress, “I applaud those Members of Congress who came together in a fiscally responsible way to provide much-needed funds for the War on Terror.”



Many of the June Cleaver Dems are quaking because they see this as a reprise of the government shutdown in 2005 which marked the end of the "Republican Revolution." But I would submit that Harry Reid is nothing like that arrogant jerk Newt Gingrich, whom the country had come to viscerally loathe by that time. And George W. Bush is definitely no Bill Clinton.

Let the mind games begin.

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