Ryan Votes Against Funding Troops

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Around February 22nd, Rep. Paul Ryan gave the Bush Plan A surge in Iraq a timeline of three to six months to show some progress aiming at withdrawal. Five months remain.
Now Ryan, still in a daze after his first tour of duty in Iraq feels that a timeline running into 2008 is inappropriate?

Ryan Press Release:
A Washington Post editorial today criticizes this legislation, noting: “As it is, House Democrats are pressing a bill that has the endorsement of MoveOn.org but excludes the judgment of the U.S. commanders who would have to execute the retreat the bill mandates.”

Paul Ryan continued to criticize the bill as "micromanaging our military commanders."

Yeah, but which commanders are you talking about? The ones that had three years of “on the ground” Iraq experience, were against the surge and micro-managed out of command by Bush, or the ones that blindly agreed with Bush and were micro-managed in? Paul Ryan specifically picks out about $360 million of pork embedded within the bill as a good reason to deny the troops nearly $100 billion dollars in additional funding. Although many Democrats promote using the power of the purse to stop this bloody war, Ryan not surprisingly enough is willing to use the power of the purse not because he’s against the war, no not at all. He’s willing to cut off funding the troops strictly because of the power of the purse. Some people call that conservative, others might call it just plain cheap.

Journal Sentinel Excerpt:
Appropriations Committee Chair Dave Obey of Wausau said, "That's the problem with this president. This president isn't moved by anything except his own head. The Constitution says the Congress has the power of the purse. The Constitution doesn't make him king. . . . The president needs to understand the days of having a rubber-stamp Congress are over."
He said the legislation contained spending items that Republicans left unfinished when they controlled the House, and he said the dairy provision corrected an inequity in farm policy in which the milk subsidy expired a month sooner than subsidies for other commodities.
During the floor debate, Obey responded to a Washington Post editorial criticizing the bill by suggesting that its editorial board had no credibility because it "endorsed going to war in the first place" and helped drive the drumbeat for Congress in 2002 to authorize "that misbegotten, stupid, ill-advised war that has destroyed our influence over a third of the world."

Right on, Obey. Particularly about newspaper editorial boards. They are as genuine or legitimate as your average blogger and letter writing citizen and deserve no extra attention or credibility, in fact because they are paid to write what they write and are guided by profits and their own agenda, their opinions deserve even less.

It is becoming more apparent that the time-line stipulation in the bill is meant not to telegraph a date specific withdrawal to a potential enemy, but to strike out the Bush neo-con platform of a never-ending war in Iraq. The bill is expected to narrowly pass in the Senate, but Bush intends to play theatrical politics and veto the spending bill any ways, so things will be getting very partisan in the near future – I hope.