It's 171 pages long, it's due for markup by the full Apps Committee on Thursday - the media evidently have copies of current(ish) drafts, and the American public have squat (as usual).

(I can't trace whether Murtha's defense subcommittee has marked it up - the Apps site is pretty bad.)

But - a House staffer has apparently said that the bill

still appeared to be 17 votes shy of assured passage

There's more...

Yesterday - believe it or not - I went through the Dem personnel on the full Apps Committee to tot up the Progs. Just - y'know, for the hell of it.

Most particularly not because I thought...

But today what do I read (in the Hill,no less) but a slobberingly juicy lede like this:

House Democrats enjoy a 37-29 advantage over Republicans on the influential Appropriations Committee that will be voting Thursday to withdraw all troops from Iraq by August of next year, or earlier.

But the problem confronting leadership officials is that 12 of the panel Democrats are members of the Out of Iraq Caucus, meaning that if most Republicans reject the spending bill, the caucus has the ability to kill the measure.

There's more...

Just to make one thing clear at the outset: I have no doubt that, as a group, the Progs have surrendered on the Iraq supplemental bill and will be hors de combat on the subject for the foreseeable future.

(We have it both from our Chris and the Post piece he links.)

What follows I'd rate as of purely academic interest - no all-caps rant or comment spam Congressional fax number list will follow!

So, with the air duly cleared - what about it?

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The piece in the Posttoday gives me a Wha' happened? feeling.

It's got a feature-style lede, is full of inside information without even much of an acknowledgement of the fact - and is written in the tone of someone who's just become a good friend of Nancy - or who would like to!

The first few grafs kinda-sorta tell us that, quite probably, we're not in Kansas anymore:

There's more...

In most cases, when the lefty sphere calls for radical action from Congressional Dems, it's baying at the moon from guys who know not whereof they speak.

Now, there's the potential for radical action - and there's what strikes me as something of an eery silence from the sphere.

Should the Progs try to defeat the Iraq supplemental bill when it arrives on the House floor the week after next?

There's more...