" Biden is wrong.  Bush can be stopped."

Hmm..first Obama was wrong.  Now Biden is wrong. Next Reid, Pelosi and...

I think you are going to find every Democrat in Congress is "wrong" about using a cutoff of military  funds as a way to stop Bush Jr from escalating the war in Iraq.

Certainly a good time to revisit the War Powers Act with Bush Jr's disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan as examples of what needs to be changed.

From a cynical pure politics angle, leaving it as Bush Jr war, as an albatross for the Republicans in 2008 is probably lurking in the minds of the Democratic leadership.

You were speaking earlier on how to "take down" McCain, let him have his 30,000 troops, let it fail and McCain goes down with it.  Democratic candidate will play it like Nixon did against Humphrey in 1968.

The time is at the ready for the people to speak, the bloggers to swarm, the activists to hit the streets, the truck drivers to divert to Wash DC, the phones to jam, after all, WHEN IF NOT NOW?

This is a chess game, and most of us aren't savvy enough about the minutiae of politics to understand all the pieces that are in play.

Bush made the first move by saying "I'm working on a plan, now shut up and wait for it."

Pelosi and Reid made the next move by refusing to wait, and by demanding that the President make a budget request that breaks out the cost of his escalation from the cost of ongoing operations.

We can assume the White House isn't going to want to do that, because it makes it too easy for the Democrats to fund one and not the other.  So they'll try to blur the line somehow.  But Pelosi and Reid have a lot of arrows in their quiver, and a lot of ways to step up the pressure.

Some people want us to move straight to checkmate and give Bush an ultimatum that either he does what we say or we defund the war.  That wouldn't be a smart move because it sacrifices one of our best weapons - the ability to co-opt wavering Republicans and use them to up the pressure on Bush past the boiling point.  We want to be able to march over to the White House and have Bush hear from members of his own party that escalation is out of the question.  We want Bush to look weak and helpless.  He deserves it for trying to push a plan that the American people simply don't support.

I really like the way the Democrats have played this to date.  Don't make the mistake of thinking defunding is the only move available to them.

is that the Constitution requires the "collective judgment" of the President and Congress to introduce armed forces "into hostilities," or to continue the "use of force in hostilities."

Dick Cheney now says that the War Powers Resolution of 1973 is an unconstitutional infringement on the authority of the President, but the Bush Administration sought the Iraq war resolution to authorize the use of military force in Iraq under the War Powers Resolution.

What our armed forces are now doing in Iraq has little to do with the authorization in the Iraq war resolution, of course.

When Congress acted under the War Powers Resolution to authorize military action in Lebanon in 1998, it only authorized American forces to remain for 18 months. In 1993, Congress acted under the War Powers Resolution to require that forces be withdrawn from Somalia by March 31, 1994.

Biden has recently said we may need to revisit the Iraq war resolution. Interesting idea.

It was in this piece from Bob Geiger where he quoted Biden saying this:

"I have reached the tentative conclusion that a significant portion of this administration, maybe even including the vice president, believes Iraq is lost," Biden said last week. "They have no answer to deal with how badly they have screwed it up. I am not being facetious now. Therefore, the best thing to do is keep it from totally collapsing on your watch and hand it off to the next guy -- literally, not figuratively."

I got the impression this signalled that Biden was on the same page as Pelosi at least--that the Dems are about to enter a middle game with Cheney with the stakes being to prevent an escalation that would de facto just throw the whole mess to the next Administration (presumably a Democratic one).

God knows Biden is no genius, so I got the impression that Pelosi and Reid probably brought him in line.

just not fund the new "supplemental".  They won't do that.  So, they could attach a condition to the badly needed supplemental: no increase in the number of troops in Iraq.  Bush would just sign it with a signing statement, stating that as commander in chief it is in his sole discretion to set troops levels in war and proceed to spend the money on the escalation inspite of the limiting language.  Only a refusal to fund the war, a refusal to "support the troops", would work but there is not a chance of that happening.  Ultimately, it will take bodies in the streets.  A few days of cars "stalled" at rush hour in major intersections simultaneously around the country, or some other form of direct action, will be needed.

Check this AP story out:

http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/ar ticles/2007/01/08/commanders_seek_more_f orces_in_afghanistan/

Apparently, military commanders in Afghanistan need more trooops to fight the growing Taliban insurgency.  We knew that, already.  I guess Bush did not.  He has ordered a battalion withdrawn from the critical east Afghanistan sector.  The reason?  You guessed it.  To make the escalation in Iraq happen.

Maybe we need to hit the streets now.

I think it is trickier than that. Presidents are the Commanders in Chief, and Congress controls the pursestrings, which only provide rough control over Executive actions.

If I were the Congress, I would be wary about getting into a battle of trying to control military deployments via the budget. It is an extremely clumsy tool for this purpose. At best it is likely to be ineffective. For instance, funding can be routed from other discretionary sources, with the White House then going to Congress to ask for money to fund projects other than the escalation to replace the funds routed to support the escalation. I haven't looked closely at the Defense Budget by I strongly suspect there is lots of discretionary spending authority in it.

It is very easy for Bush to place the Democrats in a corner with budgetary tricks. There is simply an inherent conflict between the Constitutional authority over funding and Presidential authority as Commander in Chief, and that conflict structurally has always favored the President.

The Democrats need a real strategy here. I have been concerned for awhile now that Bush will box them into a position where they feel compelled to vote for budget authority that can be used to construe support for Bush's policies ("both McCain and Obama voted to fund the escalation - how can you hold McCain accountable for this and not Obama?".

Frankly, I think the best the Democrats can hope for here is that they can make it clear that their fingerprints aren't on Bush's policies. I don't see how they can actually stop Bush from sending more troops to Iraq if Bush really wants to do it.

Congress can rescind the authorization for military action in Iraq. Vote on it! Now!

If they are fainthearted about that, let them vote on a resolution, a "sense of Congress" resolution, in favor of redeployment of American troops.

In 1975 when the Vietnamese regime was crumbling, Gerald Ford wanted to start up bombing of North Vietnam. The Congress had banned further military action in the Vietnam conflict.

Issues of politics and willpower get resolved in our legal system.  The issue is, due to the nature of our government and society, irreducibly legal.  The question, then, is what will the courts do if they are faced with a suit against the President for violating the war powers act?  The courts will either refuse to act, thus legitimating the continued deployment of our armed forces, or they will find some bullshit way of justifying Bush's position.  Why?  The whole damn court system is capped off by 5 radically conservative justices.  

My question is who cares?

Sure, the president can send more troops if he wants to.  But the congress can cut off funding.  That's the way it works, and that's a battle I'm willing to have.  The troops can't stay over there without the expenditures, and the President can't spend money without the Congress.  

He loves making bombastic chest-beating he-man speeches, but when it comes to actually DOING something, he is MIA--especially when it calls for courage, risk and sacrifice. Not only will he not meaningfully oppose this rediculous "surge", but he has actually said so publically. Then I have to ask--WTF do we need him for?

I can only hope that Carl Levin--who is actually the appropriate person to address this issue seeing as he, not Biden, is head of the Armed Services Committee--along with his counterpart Ike Skelton in the house, DO do the right thing and try their best to meaningfully oppose and prevent this "surge".

It will also be interesting and revealing to see what the other Democratic members of these committees, and in general, do about the "surge"--especially those who intend to run for president in '08, and most especially Hillary. Now that they're in charge, will they risk political capital to do the right thing, or will they continue to play it politically safe, as they did when in the minority?

God help us--and them--if they do the latter.

Two commentaries on why Congress has the right -- and the responsibility -- to halt the war surge:

1. Guest Blogger: The Congress As Surge Protector

By Neil Kinkopf

Congress Can Forbid the President from Escalating the Iraq War without Renewed Authorization

Even if the President does not submit his plan for congressional approval, Congress is constitutionally empowered to require him to do so.

http://www.acsblog.org/separation-of-pow ers-guest-blogger-the-congress-as-surge- protector.html

2. Note to Senator Biden: The President is Not "The Decider"

Marty Lederman

I have argued in this space that because the Democrats appear now to have come out firmly against an escalation of troops in Iraq, and in favor of a deescalation of the conflict, they ought to pass a bill compelling the President to abide by such decisions.

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/01/note- to-senator-biden-president-is-not.html

Sorry for the double post, it was un intentional