Senator Feingold writes:

This situation is a collapse for Democrats. . . . {N]ow, as Congress gets ready to send the President a bill that does nothing to get our troops out of Iraq, we are just folding our cards. As one person commented under Greg Sargent’s great post at TPM cafe, "Send the Congressional Dems over to my place for some poker - I could use a windfall right now." This is no time to back down. . . .

Senator Dodd is the only Presidential candidate in the Senate who is not lying down on this:

I'm disappointed that there is no firm deadline in this version of the bill, because I believe that's the only way to responsibly bring this war to an end. I will fight for, and hope that the bill that emerges from conference has, a firm deadline to redeploy our troops.

It won't have a firm deadline of course. But now is the time to redouble our efforts for the only way to end the Iraq Debacle, the Reid-Feingold-Dodd framework of setting a date certain for not funding the Debacle.

Joe Klein writes:

This much I can confirm: there is growing pessimism among U.S. officials about the possibility of the long-sought political deal amongst Shi'ites and Sunnis and Kurds. The current feeling is that there's no way to get the Shi'ites to relinquish any significant power.

Hoo boy! What a shocker! The Shias don't want to relinquish the power WE gave them with the drive for Purple Fingers! Um, not so much a shock. And in case people were wondering, this and this are related stories. The first:

The [Iraqi] militias hardly command the loyalty of every policeman. But police commanders warn that sectarianism has seeped thoroughly into the security apparatus, and it threatens to undermine everything McNellis and his colleagues [presumably US Army trainers] have accomplished. The professional police they desire may instead become a sharper instrument of sectarian fury.

The second, Maliki a year ago:

I cannot answer on behalf of the U.S. administration but I can tell you that from our side our forces will be ready by June 2007.

Yes ready to consolidate power and to be prepared to wage the civil war against the Sunni and other groups. You see, the simple truth is, the United States has won the war in Iraq on behalf of Iran and its Shia allies in Iraq:

I had alot of praise for Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) when he first entered the Senate. It seems I was quite wrong about him. Here Phoenix Woman documents Tester playing the pliant fool for Republicans on Reid-Feingold:

"I am doing everything in my power as a U.S. senator to end the war in Iraq, but I will not cast any vote that I believe compromises the safety and security of our troops on the ground," Tester said, also in a prepared statement. "I have said for two years that the president needs to develop a plan to get us out of Iraq," Tester said. "The Congress and the American people have spoken; the president needs to start listening."

Reid-Feingold sets a date certain 10 months from now to NOT fund the Iraq Debacle. It does not "compromise" the troops. It is the only way Congress can protect the troops from Bush.

The American People have spoken Senator. Time for Senators like you to listen and stiop pretending you can't end the Iraq Debacle, which is the biggest threat our troops face today. Political cowardice and dishonesty is not substitute for leadership. And that is what Tester offered on Reid-Feingold. And for those wondering why I did not beat up on Baucus here, it is because I know that this is what Baucus has always been. Tester is a disappointment.

Yesterday the AP reported:

In grudging concessions to President Bush, Democrats intend to draft an Iraq war-funding bill without a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and shorn of billions of dollars in spending on domestic programs, officials said Monday.

This story was not believed by the Panglosses of the Netroots. And today, Rep. Obey gives them hope:

“There is no deal,” said Representative David R. Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who is the chairman of the Appropriations Committee and is one of the lead negotiators over the war money.

Uh huh. Given the history of the Iraq Supplemental bill I think anyone trusting in Obey's words is just being foolish. I'll go through it on the flip.

I criticized the House Iraq Supplemental funding bill because I knew this day would come:

In grudging concessions to President Bush, Democrats intend to draft an Iraq war-funding bill without a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and shorn of billions of dollars in spending on domestic programs, officials said Monday. While details remain subject to change, the measure is designed to close the books by Friday on a bruising veto fight between Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress over the war. It would provide funds for military operations in Iraq through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.

For all the "pragmatists" at Move On, and in the Netroots, you must NOW recognize the total miscalculation you made in March. And you must learn from your mistake. Forget benchmarks, authorizations and timelines.

We must ALL press for an end date certain for the funding of this Debacle. We must insist that NO BILL be passed funding the Iraq Debacle after a date certain. We must insist on the Reid-Feingold framework. The rest is not only a waste of time, but, as the House Supplemental efforts that started this mess, harmful.

I do not know who Monroe Anderson is, but I liked this column:

. . . Rather than deftly acting to bring the troops home, the Democrats continue their eye-shifting and throat-clearing while the killing and dying go on and on. Last week, the new majority party yielded to the oxymoron argument that we have to support the troops by keeping them in the line of fire. The Feingold-Reid Iraq Bill that would have cut the funding and thereby forced the president to bring the troops home was defeated Wednesday in the Senate. . . . The Americans who voted the Democrats into power have been let down. Instead of counting on the Democrats to deliver on their implicit promise to end the occupation, we continue to count the costs of not correcting Bush's calamitous course.

Read the whole thing.

Atrios reports on his discussions on the Sam Seder Show today regarding Iraq and the 2008 race:

Just finished chatting with Ellen Ratner and Lawrence O'Donnell on Seder's show. O'Donnell's under the impression that a year from now the Republican candidate for president will be against the war, or at least talking about getting out of it. I disagree, as I don't think there's any way they can climb out of the rhetorical trap they've placed them selves in (surrender dates, defeatocrats, have to fight them there, etc...) given that George W. Bush won't provide them with an opening for that. O'Donnell's comparison point was Nixon in 1968 . .

I think Nixon in 1968 is an apt comparison, to the Democratic Presidential candidates. You see, I don't expect whomever is elected President to end the Iraq Debacle for many years after 2008. After all, who wants to run for reelection having "lost Iraq?"

Of course they are ridiculous to fear being labelled as having lost Iraq, but fear it they will. They all fear what the Beltway Gasbags will say.

CNN reports the U.S. says seven soldiers were killed in Iraq yesterday, six by roadside bombs.

The Times Online has a feature article today saying time is running out on the two clocks running in Iraq -- the clock to beat the insurgents and the clock on the U.S. public's willingness to put up with Bush and his war.

Meteor Blades comments:

The optimists hope that by September enough Republicans will be in boiling water that they will join enough Democrats to pass some kind of out-of-Iraq bill of the sort we haven't seen yet, or who will just cut off funding by not voting for any bill.

I think the first option - call it the Obama plan - is highly unlikely, but possible.

I think the second option - call it the Armando plan - is not possible, even though it is the one I would favor were I a Congressman or Senator.

So rounding up Republicans will be easier than holding the line with Democrats? Okaaaaaay. Let me remind my good friend MB what Krugman wrote today:

Greg Sargent gets this from a congressional Dem staffer:

[A]side from sending the bill back there are only two apparent possibilities left: Either the White House gives on one of these points. Or the Dem Congressional leadership caves and produces a bill with some sort of benchmarks but no accountability -- in other words, something that's effectively meaningless. . . ."If this is what they go with, it begs the question, Why did we go through this whole exercise with the first supplemental and everything else?" our staffer asks. "What did we really accomplish?"

The staffer answers the question:

This is entirely predictable:

Democratic congressional leaders on Friday offered the first concessions in a fight with President Bush over a spending bill for Iraq, but the White House turned them down.

In a closed-door meeting with Bush's top aides on Capitol Hill, Democrats said they'd strip billions of dollars in domestic spending out of a war spending that Bush opposed if the president would accept a timetable to pull combat troops out of Iraq. As part of the deal, Democrats said they would allow the president to waive compliance with a deadline for troop withdrawals. But no deal was struck.

. . . White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten, who rejected the deal, said any timetable on the war would undermine the nation's efforts in Iraq. "We consider that to be not a significant distinction," he said. "Whether waivable or not, timelines send the wrong signal."

And so it goes. The choice for the Democratic Congress is binary. Continue to fund the Iraq Debacle on Bush's terms or end the Debacle by announcing a date certain when the Debacle will not be funded. Yes, the Reid-Feingold framework.

KagroX writes a misinformed post on the efficacy of not funding the Iraq War:

Let's see that first one again:

Was it a full-bore data-mining program of some sort, akin to the TIA program that Congress had de-funded? (John Yoo suggests as much in his new book.)

What jumps out at me there is this: the possibility that we're talking about the reincarnation of a program that Congress had de-funded.

That'd be idle speculation but for the mention that John Yoo apparently makes such a suggestion himself.

It's idle speculation particularly because it is from John Yoo. Let's consider what John Yoo was doing in 2003:

Professor Yoo was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago Law School in 2003.

John Yoo was not at Justice when the program in question was not funded as it was originally. He does not know anything about it and could not. It is by definition idle speculation.