Veto, Pt. II

History will record that congress approved the funds to wind down the occupation of Iraq to a foreseeable end, and that George W. Bush vetoed the legislation for the pettiest of political motives.

Harry Reid's reaction:

"A bipartisan majority of Congress sent the president a bill to fully fund our troops and change the mission in Iraq. The president refused to sign this bill. That's his right, but now he has an obligation to explain his plan to responsibly end this war. ... But if the president thinks that by vetoing this bill he'll stop us from working to change the direction of the war in Iraq, he is mistaken."

Mitch McConnell's reaction:

"This veto is the first step toward quickly passing the legislation our troops asked for. The president's call for a quick turnaround on the funding bill after the veto is consistent with what we've heard from commanders in the field. No matter how you may feel about the effort to secure Iraq, providing the funds to our troops should be everyone's top priority."

Everything Reid says is absolutely correct. By contrast, everything McConnell says is completely false. It's amazing, really.

First of all, the troops did not ask for the funding. The president asked for the funding. The congress approved the funding and sent the bill to him for his signature. He vetoed it. So, the veto is not, in fact, the first step toward anything. It is, at best, a detour on the way to what the president claims to want: funding to continue the fighting in Iraq.

Finally, providing funds to continue the fighting should not be everybody's top priority. Getting American troops the hell out of harm's way should be everybody's top priority. Tragically, it is only the Democrats who are trying to bring them home. George W. Bush and his Republican enablers are determined to keep the troops in Iraq indefinitely so that they never have to admit they were wrong about the invasion in the first place.

I am starting to gag everytime I hear Bush and the GOP invoke "the troops" with that empty, cheap sentimentality that comes so naturally to them. The legislation our troops asked for. Give me a break. You love the troops so much, Mitch? How about some damn body armor? How about some armored Humvees? Or, how about this, Mitch? How about just getting them out of the way of the bullets and the IEDs?

Until you can summon the will to tell George W. Bush that there is nothing to win in Iraq, and that he is sending the troops unnecessarily to their deaths, I don't want to hear anything you have to say.