Vetoed

The President vetoed a bill that I don't really understand last week, but it at least made gestures at getting the US out of Iraq. There's now something of a standstill, in which Congress needs to either defund the troops, which no one seems to want, or pass some sort of bill that the President will sign. John Edwards is asking for money to run an anti-war ad directed at Congress in DC, and John Kerry has a great diary at DailyKos already thinking ahead to targeting key Republicans in '08.

Congressional tactics are very very complicated, especially to the extent they intersect with procedural matters, but I think the thing to do is to pass a bill that funds the troops for 2-3 months. When the President comes back to ask for more, pass the bill he just vetoed, or a stricter one. If he vetoes that, give him funding for another short period of time. Right now we just don't have the votes to end the war, but its sure not getting any more popular. If Pelosi makes the Republicans vote to stay in Iraq and support Bush every 2 months until November of 2008, they will have a worse election then than they did in 06. Either that, or sometime between now and then we will see major Republican defections, big intra-party clashes, and hopefully an earlier (but long overdue) end to the American involvement in the disaster in Iraq.