As predicted here yesterday, Congressional Democrats have given up on proposed language that would have required all troops to withdraw from Iraq by September 2008. Instead, they hope to send to the president a funding bill that ‘suggests’ that all troops be withdrawn by March 31 of next year:
So now Congressional Democrats have given up on ‘forced surrender’ in favor of ‘suggested surrender.’ Note once again the reversal on a campaign promise. Democrats complained bitterly that they were excluded from key conference meetings in the Republican Congress. Now the most important question in this conference has been settled with no Republican input. This move will ease Senate passage of the conference report, but it will mean more heavy lifting for House Democratic leaders. They will still receive almost no Republican votes and they will surely lose the votes of some progressives. Pelosi and Hoyer will need to win over some ‘Blue Dogs’ who voted against the original House bill–and there are only 6 or 8 of those. And all that heavy lifting will produce a bill that will surely be vetoed–after which those same leaders must sell their conference on a new version that they will find even more distasteful.
