Sensing a Shift, Reid Will Press for an Iraq Exit

[WilliamPitt]

Sensing a Shift, Reid Will Press for an Iraq Exit
By CARL HULSE and JEFF ZELENY

Published: July 8, 2007

WASHINGTON, July 7 — Democratic voters are not the only ones bitter over their party’s failure to use new Congressional power to force a withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Senator Harry Reid, the occasionally obstreperous Democratic leader, is seething as well.

“We haven’t done enough,” said Mr. Reid, a onetime moderate who has evolved into one of the party’s most fervent critics of the war.

That view captures not only Mr. Reid’s sentiment but also the shifting political dynamic on the war, as public frustration remains high, the conflict dominates the presidential campaign landscape and senior Republicans have chosen to break with President Bush even as the administration has urged patience.

Sensing momentum from the new Republican defections, Mr. Reid and other leading Democrats intend to force a series of votes over the next two weeks on proposals to withdraw troops and limit spending. Democrats are increasingly confident they can assemble majority opposition to administration policies.

“It is going to be harder for Republicans to not sign on to something with bite in it, a clear Congressional assessment that change is needed,” said Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee. “I think it is more likely there will be a majority around here that say we should begin to redeploy some forces by a certain date, and I hope it would be a larger majority.”

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/washington/08reid.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[shadowknows69]

1. You've been hitting the snooze button on the alarm for sometime now

Nice of you to finally wake up Harry. Now show us something.

[MuseRider]

3. No kidding.

I kinda thought the election in November indicated a pretty big shift myself.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

7. but we can't take a strong stance. the GOP might get angry and call us names

and that would be so horrible!

[MuseRider]

10. Gag, I can hardly

take watching this train wreck anymore. It is beyond belief that they did not even squeak during the last 6 years until they got the seats in Congress and now they squeak and hide. I don't give a shit that they did not or do not have the votes there is something to be said for speaking up loudly for what is right. I don't recall even much of an eye roll from most of them. Do they not see that people will come out in droves and vote for the people who take care of them without screwing them in the process? Ahh well. We have certainly done all we could and they are simply too afraid to stand up to the bullies. I could understand that if it was just one person (except Kucinich, he never stops :loveya:) but when there are so many of them and the public is behind them what are they so frickin afraid?

[shadowknows69]

12. The rethugs just send them a postcard from Dallas TX.

that says "Remember what happened to Jack"

[shadowknows69]

13. Which would also explain Dennis' fearlessness

He DID have the mob out to hit him, and probably are still trying to. What does he have to fear from "Shotgun" Cheney.

[MuseRider]

15. Well they can't shoot them all can they?

I mean even the American public might look up from their cheeseburgers and notice wouldn't they?

They can certainly hide together you would think they could stand up together as well.

Ya, Dennis. What a guy.

The whole damned thing is disgusting and embarrassing.

"Shotgun" Cheney, good one.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

19. what was it? What caused it?

bush's numbers were clinging to the high 20s, low 30s, depending on how & who you measured.
9/11 simply was an opportunity to stand together, regardless of who was president. It saved his first time, and probably got him a second one.

But a side effect was to energize Rove into attack mode. Anyone who criticized the boy king's ideas, pronouncements, etc, would be labeled unpatriotic. And that canard worked. Boy did it work. Our dumbocratic leaders blew them, swallowed, and swallowed again, before they dropped trousers, bent over and asked for more.

The thing that we have mostly forgotten, and the cream dela cream of the fear-mongering that succeeded so well was anthrax.

Who did it? someone local. Well educated. Scientific knowledge. And politically aware. The fact that the feebies have done so little with that attack says something a lot. .

[regnaD kciN]

4. A little bit late, I'd say...

Unfortunately, the cave (after all the brave words) on funding this spring has cemented the image of the new Democratic Congress as ineffective and impotent, and I wonder if anything Reid and the others can do will change that image in the public mind anymore. :-(

[shadowknows69]

5. More importantly Bush knows they have no teeth.

Time to reach across the aisle and try to make some rethug senators see the light. It's their party this idiot is destroying no matter how they try to spin it, the republicans own Iraq and the people know it.

[Botany]

2. “We haven’t done enough,” said Mr. Reid .....

.... no shit Harry. And the Captain of the Titanic wished he missed the
iceberg too.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. "Sensing a shift"? Kinda like "sensing a flood" when your 9 feet under water.

"We haven't done enough.." Understatement of the decade award.

[leftchick]

20. no shit

how many have died before he had his epiphany? How many more before he actually DOES something?

[bigtree]

8. I don't think his critics have done enough either

in getting the amount of support in this Congress which is necessary to advance their strategies or initiatives, so I don't think Harry is the only one who has to answer for the failure. Republicans bear every bit of blame that we can foist, without casting one stone our leaderships' way. The overwhelming majority of our Democrats are still committed to voting for legislation containing timetables for withdrawal; the majority of republicans are not. That's the landscape. The failure to negotiate that landscape to our advantage is not Reid's alone. He can only advance whatever there is support for, within our own party and without.

[BrotherBuzz]

9. This time for sure

Bullwinkle: Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of a hat.

Rocky: Again?? That trick never works.

Bullwinkle: This time for sure.

[Edweird]

11. Leadership my ass. You lead from out front. Reid is the Dem pollwatching "Followship"

[BlackVelvet04]

14. What they are sensing is less

financial support. Hitting them in the pocketbook is what gets their attention.

[shadowknows69]

18. Double edged sword that

Good way to make them listen but puts us at a general disadvantage. You know there's no lack of corporate blood money for the other side.

[NoPasaran]

16. Wow, not much love for Harry on this thread

I for one have a lot of respect for how he plays a very week hand. Give 'em hell, Harry!

[LaurenG]

17. Yippy!!

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: