Anti-Climacus

E.G.: what I was talking about earlier, from The Nation:

"When the Senate threw a small log in front of Little Caesar's $87 billion, it seemed of no great consequence. He will clearly get his money for Iraq, regardless. The Senate majority, including eight Republicans, merely decreed that half of the $20 billion for reconstruction funds should be sent to Iraq as a loan, not a gift, from the American taxpayers. The House voted otherwise and will probably prevail in the end.

But I read that Senate roll call as a decisive rebuke to our warrior President and one that will be understood eventually as having pivotal meaning--the beginning of the end for Bush's misadventure. The message from the Senate is: Get out--NOW. If the White House has any sense, they will read it that way. As every authority knows, $87 billion is not the half of what will be demanded from US taxpayers if this war of occupation continues. Eight Republicans came back from recess, their ears burning with constituent anger, and voted with the Dems.

If Bush encounters this level of rebellion with this year's appropriation for Iraq, next year's will be a bloody revolution. Only there won't be another appropriations bill for the war between now and next fall's election. The White House wouldn't dare. The Republicans in Congress would not allow a roll call, not with their own re-elections approaching."

God forbid Bush should ask for more money to keep Iraq from falling apart! Congress should prove American critics right by getting out when the getting's good. Granted, not all of us liberals have quite mastered the art of Stalinism with such perfection, but still...