Centerfield

Voting against the $87BN was not a failure to fund. It was a protest vote against the way the funds were being handled. Without devolving into politics, here's the statement of someone not running for president who voted against it:
http://www.betterworld.com/getreallist/article.php?story=20040130031619467

Asking what else we could have done with the $87BN is not a failure to fund, either - it's a question of if the war in Iraq, in hindsight, was a good idea.

I diagree on both counts. Some Democrats, including Kerry, supported alternative bills. But their bills failed -- and they were left, at the end of the day, with a question of whether to vote the funding bill up or down.

They could have voted for the final bill, and allowed their earlier vote for alternatives to illustrate their preferences. Instead, they voted against the final bill, which inevitably conveys the impression of being against funding the war.

Asking what else we could have done with the $87BN is not a failure to fund, either - it's a question of if the war in Iraq, in hindsight, was a good idea.

Well, when you or I ask ourselves what we might do with that money, it's kind of a natural thing to consider. I sometimes wonder, for example, whether the $200 billion or so we're going to end up spending in Iraq might have funded an effort to make dramatic changes somewhere else that might have been more effective.

However, when a political organization runs an expensive ad campaign, they're doing more than this sort of "wondering out loud". They're trying to focus our attention on a few fundamental points they want to make. Running those ads during the time when we, as a nation, are debating the $87 billion package makes it somewhat likely they will be construed as adopting one side of the debate.

And, of course, MoveOn is an organization that supported Howard Dean pretty overwhelmingly in the internal poll they took. And Dean is a guy who opposed both the war and the $87 billion reconstruction package.

William,
I agree 100% with you. it's a shame that politics is being played with such things. Bush appears to be trying to delay asking for more funding, and that's bad for the troops. I wish he'd trust us a little bit more.

But if he were asking for more funding now, the same people criticizing him for underfunding would be crying boondoggle even louder. I don't dobt it a second. this uggests that their criticism lacks credibility. No sense wasting our time with those who are always sure that Bush's policy is wrong, no matter what the policy is.

I think I see both sides as about equally willing to play politics with this.

Bush proposed the original $87 billion -- far more than was anticipated -- with the idea of being able to avoid asking for any money during 2004, an election year.

That's really not legitimate, in my opinion. If you ask the nation to go to war, surely you're willing to take whatever political hit is involved in the inevitable funding debates.

And then, of course, they intended to avoid asking for more money even as our military needs increased enough to make it necessary.

The Democrats -- especially the ones running for president -- used the funding debate to burnish their anti-war credentials. It became a proxy for being against the war at a time when Dean was setting the pace for the field.

Kerry would be in a position now to submit his own funding bill and handle this proplem -- if only, if only ... yes, if only he had supported the earlier funding package. If he did it now, it would be widely seen as flip-flopping.

All of this is an object lesson on why you can't play politics with war. You either have to do it, or not. There's no finesse.

This issue should be at the middle of the presidential debate right now. Kerry's problem is he has effectively forfeited the right to criticize Bush on the issue.

We all know about the "I actually voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it" gaffe. But there is also this from John Kerry on Face the Nation on September 14, 2003.

"Mr. McMANUS: If that amendment does not pass, will you then vote against the $87 billion?

Sen. KERRY: I don't think any United States senator is going to abandon our troops and recklessly leave Iraq to—to whatever follows as a result of simply cutting and running. That's irresponsible." (http://www.vote-smart.org/speech_detail.php?speech_id=M000019446)

I will be shocked if Bush does not turn around on this in the very near future. So what is Kerry going to be able to say?

Todd:

Kerry is going to say that he knew the bill was going to pass because it had the votes. He could have been like the rest and voted for it...but he chose not to because he wanted it brought up as a platform for discussion:

1. Why did the administration insist on sending the $87 billion without cutting back on tax increases?

2. Why did the administration not budget for this contingency when they went into Iraq in the first place?

3. Why were our soldiers sent to Iraq and Afghanistan without the needed equipment that this appropriation was for?

This is what we should really be talking about.

Carla ---
Good points.
Partisans are irritating.

The Republicans wanted a war with no sacrifices. The old guns and butter. The American people did not decide to this involved--in so many ways. Isn't it about time we're open about use of mercenaries too? Do we want all our military fighting outside of this country to be as well paid as mercenaries? And, since we're talking about mercenary soldiers I want to see Tribute paid by all countries we've been playing Uncle to. (including the ones that are kicking us in the ass by restricting our trade and selling billions of products into this market)

Janus

Janus

I agree with Carla 100% These are questions the American people have to ask too

DVD R, CD
Duplication, CD
Duplicator. CD Packaging,
CD Replication, CD
Rom Duplication, DVD Duplication,


DVD Duplicator, DVD
Replication, DVD Packaging,
DVD Rom Duplication