E Pluribus Unum

I always thought that Murtha’s readiness requirement was brilliant. I wonder why so many Democrats failed to get that.

Yes, send the bill "clean" but with the readiness, rotation and benchmarks provisions. Let Bush come to the Congress and the people if he wants to insist that he doesn’t have enough troops without over-deploying and under equipping them, and ask to expand the Army and Marines.

And pass legislation declaring the original authorization to disarm Iraq moot. If Bush wants authorization for whatever the f*ck he thinks he’s doing, again, he should have to explain it to the people and their representatives and ask their permission.

Richardson gets it:

Richardson, who favors a quick end to the war, argued for a major strategic shift by the Democrats. Rather than focusing on the supplemental funding bill, he said, Democrats should try to win support for a resolution that would take away Bush's authority to continue the war.

Richardson argued that the 2002 resolution is invalid because it was based on the assumption that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. If Congress passed a resolution de-authorizing the war, he said, Bush would be forced to challenge it in the courts and ultimately the Supreme Court would have to rule on it.

"I would go with this very clear de-authorization issue," he said in a telephone interview from Nevada. "There are other issues besides the war in Iraq that are at stake. One is Congress's responsibility to initiate a war. It's got to be a constitutional issue, a separation-of-powers issue."

It's a clever approach. I have some concerns:

1. Is there a base of support for this now -- in either party? If not, let's not waste our time. We need to pass a bill that moves us in the right direction, even if it is 6 inches at a time. Advocating for a bill that has no chance of passage doesn't help anyone.

2. If there is enough support to get passage, we should go into this knowing that there will be a legal fight that will last until Bush leaves office -- and the practical effect of ending the war would be lost. So the benefit of the bill would be somewhat abstract -- we'd be fighting to preserve checks and balances for the future.

Also, I'm wary of involving the Supreme Court on any fight between the Legislative and Executive branches.

Boy, everyone wants to be wrong today!

”If there is enough support to get passage, we should go into this knowing that there will be a legal fight that will last until Bush leaves office -- and the practical effect of ending the war would be lost.”

Well, if I haven’t been clear, I think that the practical matters are mostly out of our hands. Because of where the Republicans have put us, we will be responding to what others do for the foreseeable future.

On the political side, many Americans still don’t have a clue what this is about (did you say something Ron?). Defining the mission is the first step to shaping future policy and public support of same. Due to Republican false advertising at the outset of the war and continued mendacity on the subject, unfortunately, that’s where we need to start.

You do realize that we will be having that “legal fight” regardless of whether Americans understand what the fight is about. I figure Democrats are better off if they do.