Democrats Cave to Bush on Iraq Funding

An AP story published online at the New York Times today reports the Democratic Party Congressional leadership has decided to give Bush his war funding for the occupation of Iraq, at least until the end of the fiscal year in September.

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. [emphases mine]

The story adds that Democrats "are expected to seek other opportunities to challenge Bush's handling of the unpopular conflict later this year". Additionally, they are said to be tying passage of the long-stymied minimum wage hike to the Iraq funding. But nothing can hide their craven capitulation to the Bush veto and the war party's thirst for militarist imperialism.

The minimum wage maneuver is all the more obscene, as it attempts to link the needs of the lowest and most vulnerable strata of workers to the needs of the war machine. One would have thought that only the GOP could turn the minimum wage into the equivalent of blood money, but the Democrats appear to be outdoing themselves these days.

The article also states that the legislation was "subject to change", and the story's author could get no Democrat to speak on the record about the pending legislation. What a surprise!

It remains to see if this is a trial balloon, or the last popgun shot in the Democrat's phony antiwar stance.