Some Democrats unwilling to join GOP opposition to Iraq plan

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/nation/16605635.htm

Some Democrats unwilling to join GOP opposition to Iraq plan
Compromise measure may not get bipartisan support leaders hoped for
By Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray
WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON - Senate Democratic leaders who decided to back a Republican resolution against President Bush's Iraq war plan in hopes of winning broad bipartisan support ran into stiff resistance Thursday from an unexpected quarter: fellow Democrats.

The compromise measure states that the Senate disagrees with the president's plan and urges Bush to consider all other options for achieving his strategic goals.

Democratic defections probably would not prevent the legislation from passing the Senate, provided that the resolution gets to a final vote over a threatened filibuster by Republicans. But their defections would deprive Democratic leaders of a strong united vote against Bush's decision to boost troop levels in Iraq by 21,500.

Two Democrats, Sens. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., came out forcefully against the compromise, saying the newly worded resolution went too far toward GOP positions. Dodd called it "essentially an endorsement of the status quo" in Iraq, and Feingold denounced it as "a deal with the devil."

"This is the United States Senate. This is not some city council somewhere," Dodd said. "It seems to me sending something down (to the White House) that engages the president, that forces the administration to pay attention is something we ought to be considering."

Other Democrats who said they remain undecided are among those who are pushing binding legislation to cap troop levels, force a new vote to authorize the war or begin bringing troops home.

The Democratic dust-up came on a day when opponents of the president's policies received some unexpected ammunition. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported that Bush's plan to deploy 21,500 additional combat troops to Iraq is likely to require at least 15,000 support personnel and as many as 28,000. That could mean the plan will involve as many as 48,000 troops and contractors, at a cost of $9 billion to $13 billion for the first four months and as much as $27 billion for the first year.

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The article attempts to make it look like the Democrats are the ones who are not coming out against Bush's plan, both in the headline and in the way it is written, when the opposite is actually the case.

These clowns can't even agree on the degree of their own noncomittalness.

Once again Feingold is in the forefront, as he has been from Day 1, cutting to the chase and not putting up with dumb@$$ BULLS**T.

So this thing is complicated, and I'm really not going to predict how it eventually swings out.