I knew it

The no-good, mother-fucking, yellow-bellied assholes. I knew it. Didn't I say it? Didn't I say just a week ago that "follow through ... is still a definite 'if'" and "I don't want to get sucked in again?" Didn't I?

The Senate will not stop paying for the Iraq war or relent from insisting that President Bush keep pressing the Baghdad government for a negotiated end to the violence, a top Democrat said Sunday.

Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, the Senate Armed Service Committee chairman, took issue with an effort by Majority Leader Harry Reid to cut off money for the war next year as a way to end U.S. involvement.

"We're not going to vote to cut funding, period," Levin said. "But what we should do, and we're going to do, is continue to press this president to put some pressure on the Iraqi leaders to reach a political settlement."

Press him exactly how, you gutless nitwit? How are you going to do it? Tut-tut at him? Talk to him sternly? Express your "disappointment?" Pass another non-binding - read "utterly meaningless" - resolution? The one power that everyone agrees Congress has is the power of the purse - and that is the one power which you have now insisted that Congress will never, ever, oh dear me perish the very thought, use.

Oh god, I swear this makes me sick to my stomach. I find it impossible to adequately express the anger, the disgust, the contempt I'm feeling. Just how bad was Senator Craven's performance? This bad:

"We can keep the benchmarks part of the bill without saying that the troops must begin to come back within four months," Levin said. "If that doesn't work and the president vetoes because of that, and he will, then that part of it is removed, because we're going to fund the troops."

So in other words, Bush was right when he said it was all a pose, just "a political statement" so hurry up and send me a bill so I can veto it so we can get this silly posturing out of the way so you can get back to giving me what I want. You really aren't serious about ending the war. Just like I said about your House counterparts a month ago, this is

about saying you oppose the war while at the same time running away from any actual responsibility for doing anything about it. It's about, bottom line, positioning for the 2008 campaign and who gives a damn about the lives, American (and allied) and even more Iraqi, ruined in the meantime.

But oh no! cries Craven. We're Very Serious! Because

"what we will leave will be benchmarks, for instance, which would require the president to certify to the American people if the Iraqis are meeting the benchmarks for political settlement, which they, the Iraqi leaders, have set for themselves," he said.

Oh, yeah, swell. Especially considering how well that's gone so far. In the New York Times last week, Leon E. Panetta, Clinton's chief of staff, ran down a list:

By early 2007, there was supposed to be a provincial election law. No progress has been made on it. There were supposed to be changes in de-Baathification laws in order to reintegrate officials of the former regime and Arab nationalists into public life. No progress there, either. There was supposed to be a law to "rein in sectarian militias." Ditto.

A referendum was supposed to happen by March on constitutional amendments. It didn't and no one knows when it will. By May, the still non-existent law about militias was to be enforced. Obviously, it won't be. By June, there were to have been provincial elections. They are not going to happen.

As for security issues, things are not going much better. The Iraqis have increased security spending over 2006 levels as promised, but they are falling behind on the number of battle-ready Army units.

By April, the Iraqis want to take over total control of the Iraq Army (not likely based on current progress).

By September, the Iraqis want to be given full civil control of all provinces (to date they control 3 of 18 provinces).

By December, the Iraqis, with United States support, want to achieve total security self-reliance (too early to tell, but does anyone really find this likely?).

This is the sort of record you want us to rely on? What are you going to do when the benchmarks are not met, or when Bush issues phony "certifications," or when he tells you to shove your certifications and dares you to do anything about it? What are you going to do, since you've already taken funding cuts off the table?

You toad-sucking, ass-licking, pathetic excuse for a moron. You and every other lamebrain Democrat cowering and weeping like a cliché victim in a slasher movie at the first hint of being called "against the troops" because you're more interested in keeping your perk-sodden ass in your comfy office chairs than in doing the right thing. You disgust me.

A video of the pathetic performance can be found here. By the way, why was it presented as a "Democratic response" to Bush when it also featured a GOPper supporter of Shrub?

Footnote: Senator Arlen Specter said

"We cannot leave the troops unfunded in the field. That just can't be done. And Congress is not in a position to micromanage the war. But we do not have any good alternative. Right now, you can't see the end of the tunnel, let alone a light at the end of the tunnel."

Specter said he was not prepared "to withdraw funding at this time. But my patience, like many others, is growing very thin."

Just how bad have things gotten when Arlen Specter sounds more antiwar than leading Democrats?

One other footnote: This slam, for the moment, does not apply to Harry Reid, Russ Feingold, and John Kerry (and any others, if there are any) who have pledged to support a cutoff of funding as of next March if Bush vetoes the limitations in the funding bill.