The yella veep's vote was not required here .....too bad....say...if the Iraq war is the "greatest ideological" struggle of our time, as George W. Bullshitter asserts...what are his two brat daughters doing to help the cause? They get to shop and get shitfaced in South America while brave young Americans are getting killed in a failed nation-building exercise...just doesn't seem fair !!!!

Veto proof or not, this vote is such a breath of fresh air from the Senate that the effort is fully worth it, no matter the end result. I continue to hold the possibility of strong pressure placed on the right people might work miracles. I know that's what we need in this situation. We got one when the Democratic party became the majority party in the Senate. Now it's time for another one - this time for saving lives and turning the country from self-destruction.

Let's hope for a miracle. Now what should we each do?

was a real baseball fan. When I'd ask him who was going to win a series, he would reply, "I don't know. That' why they play the game."

Odds are that Bush will veto the bill, and the Senate will not be able to override the veto. However, we won't know for sure until it happens. I think that Bush will veto, but it would not completely shock me if he didn't. I think that the Senate will not be able to override the veto, but it really would not shock me if some of the GOP senators had a death-bed conversion, and voted with the dems - and overrode the veto.

This issue is a coming to Jesus issue. It is vital that pols be made to sign their name to a position, and not be able to weasel out. I live in Virginia. Every seat in the General Assembly is up for grabs this year. The Iraq War and the corruption of the GOP is filtering down to races in the nether regions of the state - and not just races for the US House but local county races. This is an accountability moment for Bush and the Congress, and there is nothing that pols dislike more than being forced to go on record on a difficult issue.

Bring'em on!

No surprise here. Who expected the Ambassador of Israel to the US Senate to vote against the interests of his real home country?

the supplemental funding bill, that means there's no funding for the war, right? Is there a problem here?

...what we have here is a giant game of chicken.

Bush is betting he can convince the public that Congress is simply not "supporting the troops" when they attach an end date of any sort to a funding bill and approve it -- as though this were the same as not approving ANY funding bill! There is a smidgen of truth to this, but only in the sense that Congress knows Bush will veto it, and they can't yet muster the votes to override.

Congress, on the other hand, is counting on the larger truth to be heard by the public -- that they HAVE approved all the funding (and more) requested by the Current Occupant. His veto and the lack of GOP votes to override are all that stands between the troops everyone SAYS they support, and the money that they need.

So, who will blink first in this game of chicken? Who will swerve away before the otherwise inevitable collision? Bush's "political capital" so noisily proclaimed after his re-election is gone (assuming it ever existed) -- and his administration's credibility is approaching zero. He ain't gonna win this battle.

Congress can continue their approval of bill after bill, and can point to that historical record to refute claims that THEY are holding up funding, that THEY don't "support the troops." Bring it on, Mr. President, bring it on. You're on the wrong side, as last November's election results proved.

Maybe the House and Senate plans aren't perfect, but they will force Bush to exercise his veto, a giant public slap in the face of the American public and the congress...both of which have the constitutional right to his respect, cooperation and accountability.

He's scared to death of that veto, because it puts him all alone in the middle of a white hot spotlight without all the dramatic staging and poignancy of his phony New Orleans speech or his cocky walk under the Mission Accomplished sign.

Can you say...hey...where'd all my rats go?

At least the Senator has a conscience. You may disagree with him, you may make fun of him, you may consider him some kind of traitor. But he has the conscience of voting with his convictions with no quid pro quo from the White House. And I have no doubt whatsoever that he is right.

The democrats seem to think that screwing the troops by making a large and loud public show of how much they hate Bush and anything he does is going to make things better. Even the most conservative estimates by those who know better than Salon pundits has us stuck in Iraq well beyond 2008. Even if we were to make a decision to leave NOW, the process of redeployment and a safe exit from the country will take years. If the democrats really think the war should end, then they should do the only thing they can do which is cut off funding. These noises, barks, and silly exercises in legislative futility get us nowhere.

It's also sickening to see that the most vocal supporters for getting us out of Iraq are the same people who are running for President. How much of their decision is based on conscience, I wonder.

JP

You're a bloody idiot.

Please, feel free to offer us lowly knuckle draggers a solution to the problem that doesn't involve getting more kids ground into hamburger meat? I mean, the Occupant's plan is working great: 104 dead today in killings. 70 killed by roving gunmen yesterday. Yeup. We're really locking down the violence.

We're past "put up or shut up" for this White House. We're just in "Shut up". We've given him enough time, enough resources, enough blood, enough gold, and still, 5 years later, our kids are dying. The Iraqis are dying. The Surge is a joke. Iran is more powerful than ever. And the Chief Exec. is still going to sit on his high horse doing nothing to solve the problem and barking about Democratic party politics.

Well, if politics is going to save lives and create stability, then I support politics.