Decision ‘08

House Vote Will Go Pelosi’s Way, But It Won’t Matter

All indications are that the Democrats will pass their anti-war measure today:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is headed for a big victory in the vote in the House Friday on $124 billion in funds for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If, as looked likely Thursday night, she does win, her victory will be largely due to two groups of Democrats:

Anti-Iraq war House members who voted last year against additional money for the war, but who’ve switched their votes, partly because the spending bill prescribes an August 2008 deadline for withdrawal of some, and perhaps most, U.S. troops from Iraq.

Rookie Democrats elected last November, most of them on an out-of-Iraq platform, who’ve decided to support the speaker in what is by far the most significant vote of her two-month tenure.
A Pelosi victory seemed nearly certain Thursday as leading opponents of the spending bill, such as Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., conceded defeat. “I cannot stand in the way of passing a measure that puts a concrete end date on this unnecessary war,” said Lee in a written statmeent.

A day earlier another anti-war leader, Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., sounded fatalistic, telling reporters the Iraq spending bill “probably will” pass.

“For the majority to lose this vote would be huge,” said third-ranking House Republican Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida on Wednesday.

And for that very reason — Pelosi’s clout and prestige being at stake — she seemed headed for victory as wavering Democrats rallied to her.

Nevertheless, the Senate won’t pass it, and Bush will either veto it or ignore it…leaving me to ask - will the Democrats then pass another measure aimed at undercutting our war efforts, or will they stand aside while we try to win this thing?

I’m not holding my breath waiting for the high road…

6 Responses to “House Vote Will Go Pelosi’s Way, But It Won’t Matter”

1 Scott Says:
March 23rd, 2007 at 9:55 am
Cut it out Mark. You told me after my first post that Democrats were patriotic and fighting for what they thought was right - you said that you simply had a different world view then them. It’s perfectly reasonable for you to disagree with them as it is for them to disagree with you. They are taking the “high road” by voting their conscious. By condemning them in this way, you are not.
2 daveinboca Says:
March 23rd, 2007 at 10:13 am
The MSM continues its Orwellian Ministry of Truth activities calling a pullback by the anti-war Dems an advance, and a moral defeat a “victory.” The Surreality-based universe of the ultra-left confueses its own political hallucinations with facts, and it’s sort of like that Magic Theater in Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf, “For Madmen Only.”
3 Bob from Ohio Says:
March 23rd, 2007 at 12:20 pm
218-212. 5 MIA.

2 GOPers voted with the majority.

The Dems have about 230 seats. So, they lost about 15 or so Dems.

I don’t get it. What does Pelosi gain from this farce? No chance that anything remotely similar will pass the Senate in the face of a filibuster. Can someone id what I am missing?
4 peter Says:
March 23rd, 2007 at 3:51 pm
I am in all day meetings today, so regrettably this is my one shot at posting. What is gained? Let’s suppose that as a Congressman, you believe that the war has been a horrendous mistake all along, and it is futile to throw more lives and money at a lost cause. (I recognize that you probably disagree with this – and whether that statement is right or wrong is a separate discussion – but for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that your disgust with the war is genuine and matches that of your constituency).

Faced with an emergency spending bill, what else would you do? Vote to continue a course of action which you feel is disastrous? Or vote your conscience?
5 Bob from Ohio Says:
March 23rd, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Thanks to Peter for missing the point of my question.

What does Pelosi (and others in the House leadership) gain with a vote with such a tiny majority? She has managed to make both the left and right in her caucus mad at her and she appears weak. I do not get the politics at all.

“vote your conscience”? Pelosi and Hoyer had to bribe votes with massive pork and still only got 218.

It seems to me that Pelosi could have accomplished a “vote of conscience” by bringing up a clean bill, personaly voting against it and letting her caucus vote by conscience, no whip at all applied. It would have passed with GOP and a few Dem votes and she and the anti-war part of the party could still make their moral point.

Eventually, in a month or so, after the Senate acts, an appropriation without (as much) unrelated pork and no firm deadline will pass and be signed into law. The tiny majority today guarantees that happening. The House leadership will then look pathetic.
6 Mark Says:
March 23rd, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Scott, I’m just frustrated that we continue to have to go down this path. The Democrats have made their opposition to the war well known on several occasions and several votes now.

How long must I hold my fire as a war supporter and give them the benefit of the doubt? At what point is it fair to say, “Fine, we get the message. You’re opposed to the war. Now, unless you’re going to yank the funding, kindly get on with things?”

It may have been a vote of conscience the first time, but by the third or fourth time, isn’t it fair to say it’s become a vote of partisanship and pandering to the base?…