As Tom Curry of MSNBC commented bluntly, “Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had a message Tuesday for voters who elected a Democratic Congress last month hoping it would force President Bush to bring US troops home from Iraq. ‘We will not cut off funding for the troops,’ Pelosi said. ‘Absolutely not,’ she said.”
Pelosi made the emphatic comment in response to a question from a reporter who asked her if the Democrats in Congress would vote to end funding for the war if Bush refused to change course in Iraq.
She went on, “Let me remove all doubt in anyone’s mind; as long as our troops are in harm’s way, Democrats will be there to support them, but ... we will have oversight over that funding.”
The new Democratic majority leader, Steny Hoyer of Maryland, declared, “None of us want to failure.”
Incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada has already signaled his willingness to go along with Bush’s next massive supplemental-budget request, expected to amount to $160 billion. “We’ll see if there’s any fluff in it and make sure there’s no pet projects,” he said recently. “But if it’s legitimate, I think we’ll have to go along with it.”
Having acknowledged their surrender to Bush over the funding, the various Democratic leaders in Congress claimed that their capitulation came with a price. Pelosi asserted that “the days of the rubber stamp are over.” And Hoyer argued that “There may well be attached to this $160 billion various parameters that the Congress expects to be met.”
Found on Cursor.org
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