Feingold-Reid - $100 contest

[sandnsea]

Kidding kidding. I'm broke.

Why isn't THIS the legislation you are all in an uproar over.

[TwilightGardener]

1. Well, I don't support defunding, so I'm glad to see it didn't pass.

[sandnsea]

2. It funded withdrawal

and a deadline. It doesn't preclude regional diplomacy, UN peacekeepers, or anything else that would maintain stability. It would just take our occupation out of the equation.

[TwilightGardener]

3. Funding withdrawal only is considered defunding. That would be political suicide

for Democrats, and buy us permanent ownership of this war and its sure-to-be-shitty aftermath. I appreciate Feingold Reid being introduced and voted on, I think it's good in principle, but would be lousy in actual practice.

[sandnsea]

4. No it isn't

Defunding is not passing any budget at all, no money, none. That is what people are concerned about.

Passing funding for withdrawal, and a deadline and procedure to do it, is what people want. It's what Obama supports. If you don't, you might be happier with Biden as a candidate.

[TwilightGardener]

5. It's all theoretical, it won't happen, so it doesn't bother me that Obama

supports it--he's not the person I primarily look to for Iraq policy anyway, because he's running for President and has too many political concerns to consider--I understand. Obviously we would fund a withdrawal--otherwise our troops are stranded! But this is essentially defunding the war, even though you keep pointing out that we'll pay for their tickets home. Defunding the war is a no-go.

[sandnsea]

8. Well that's a different position

I would never support a candidate who didn't fundamentally support my basic values and views. He supports withdrawal and will not vote for a funding bill unless it's tied to a deadline. If you don't agree with that, I don't understand why you're supporting him.

[TwilightGardener]

9. I support withdrawal along the lines of Levin-Reed. I do not support

Feingold-Reid. It's OK with me that Obama is willing to go one step further than I would in terms of defunding. He and I are not at odds in our ultimate goal. But again, he's in a campaign, and I pretty much discount the Iraq plans of anybody in a campaign. I look for the non-political truth on the war from the folks that aren't running for anything--Webb, Levin, Hagel, Reed--these guys seem to have the most non-political, pragmatic view on how to end the war in a responsible way.

[in_cog_ni_to]

6. WHY? Because it's a rerun of the same old shit. The Dems write resolutions, the repukes filibuster

them. We KNOW it's going to fail and there's not a DAMN thing we can do to make them pass it!

[sandnsea]

7. Nobody is trying anymore

I doubt Feingold-Reid even came up on Saturday. Nobody has been pushing this. There's no campaign like there was on social security. That's why there's no chance to get this passed.