• MoveOn has just sent this e-mail to members, asking them to register their opinion on the supplemental funding bill:

  Dear MoveOn member,

  We’ve got a big decision coming up this week, and we need to make it together, as a community.

  As early as Wednesday, the House may vote on a Democratic proposal on Iraq. The proposal was put together by Speaker Pelosi and Congressmen Obey and Murtha. It is going to be a close vote–the Republicans are against it and some conservative Democrats are uncomfortable with the bill.

  Most, but not all, of the progressives in Congress are planning on voting for the bill. These progressives, like many of us, don’t think the bill goes far enough, but see it as the first concrete step to ending the war. And President Bush is threatening to veto it for the same reason.

  I’ve told Rep. Murtha that this was a decision for MoveOn’s members to make. Now I’m asking you to help make it. Should we support or oppose the Democrats’ plan? Just click here to register your view.

  As BarbinMD has argued:

  Well, kudos for their esprit de corps, but did it escape their attention that this bill does nothing to force George Bush’s hand or to ensure that he doesn’t go unchecked?

  The Democrats have succeeded in one thing with this bill: getting the media to call it binding, though there’s absolutely nothing in it that actually enforces the deadline or actual  Is this a first concrete step in ending the war? It’s not concrete in any sense of providing a check on Bush. BarbinMD, again:

  When it comes to troop being trained and equipped?  

  (d) The President, by certifying in writing to the Committees on Appropriations and the Committees on Armed Services that the deployment to Iraq of a unit that is not assessed fully mission capable is required for reasons of national security and by submitting along with the certification a report in classified and unclassified form detailing the particular reason or reasons why the unit’s deployment is necessary despite the chief of the military department’s assessment that the unit is not fully mission capable, may waive the limitation prescribed in subsection (b) on a unit-by-unit basis.

  On ending extended rotations?

  (d) The President…may waive the limitation prescribed in subsection (b) on a unit-by-unit basis.

  On sending troops back to Iraq in less than a year?

  (d) The President…may waive the limitation prescribed in subsection (b) on a unit-by-unit basis.

  And the language that tied funding to the Iraq government meeting Bush-prescribed benchmarks? Gone.

  And the end date? Unenforcable.

  Given the fact that the bill is little more than a non-binding resolution expressing Congress’s wishes for the war along with more funding for it, I put it to Kossacks: Do you support or oppose the Democrats’ plan?

  

  
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