by Taylor Marsh
This morning on "Face the Nation," Speaker Pelosi once again drew the line in the sand for Mr. Bush.
Although the new Congress should not refuse to provide the funds that the troops already in Iraq and Afghanistan need, it can place an amendment on the supplemental funding bill that states that if the administration wants to increase the number of troops in Iraq above 150,000, it must provide a plan for their purpose and require an up or down vote on exceeding that number.
Think Progress (partial transcript of "Face the Nation")
I'm home from Washington D.C. and it's nice to have all my tech toys handy so that I could catch the Speaker's performance today. To say she was on message is an understatement. The Speaker also continues to demand the setting a Speaker deserves, which is on her own turf, in her preferred surroundings. Bringing the media to her new Capitol Hill power mountain is a perfect way to send the political message, especially on Iraq.
People need to understand that having a woman in charge means strength, especially on military and foreign affairs. After all, in many households, it's the mommy who gets the discipline done, while the daddy is really the softy! Okay, so I'm half kidding with that one, but the image that women, especially Democratic females, can't talk national security and foreign affairs comes from the likes of Tim Russert and that bunch, who continue to believe that national security is a man's world, or if not, then only a conservative or Republican subject. Where has he been? Someone get the message to Mr. Russert, who thinks Kate O'Beirne is the lone voice of women in America; Fox & Co., as well as Rush Limbaugh.
LIMBAUGH: Yes, you see, ladies and gentlemen, this is a triumph of feminism and estrogen, as Wes Puden says today. And ladies, the long 200-year national nightmare without a woman at the top is now over.
PELOSI [audio clip]: We have waited over 200 years. Never losing faith, we waited through the many years of struggle to achieve our rights. But women weren't just waiting; women were working.
LIMBAUGH: Yeah.
PELOSI [audio clip]: Never losing faith.
LIMBAUGH: Right.
PELOSI [audio clip]: We worked to redeem the promise of America --
LIMBAUGH: Right.
PELOSI [audio clip]: -- that all men and women are created equal. For our daughters and our granddaughters, today we have broken the marble ceiling.
LIMBAUGH: No, you have cracked it, but you have not broken it. I wonder when she loses next if she'll go back to the kitchen. If her kids and family allowed her to go from the -- what do you bet she hasn't been in the kitchen in a long time anyway?
(snip)
Yesterday was all about celebrating estrogen. More powerful than strontium-90, deadlier than polonium-210, estrogen is better for you than testosterone. That was the new speaker's message, and she got a lot of "amens," even if most were from the "womens." ... ...
Read the rest, because it gives the full picture of what Pelosi and the Democrats are up against.
But having Pelosi and the Democrats in charge also means not just talking about what's to be done, but doing the job competently. Putting in troops for "political purposes," as The Bush-McCain doctrine suggests, isn't an answer. That's only a legacy recipe for Mr. Bush, but gets us nowhere.
Unless the Iraqis, not the U.S., decide to put together a political solution, adding more U.S. troops just adds to the carnage and the prolonging of military strain currently reaching the breaking point under Bush, with the aid of senators like Graham and McCain and so many others.
Speaker Pelosi has it right. Now we need to back it up with actions, which won't be easy, given that the commander in chief is hell bent on escalation. Mr. Bush will announce just such a plan to the nation mid-week. The battle will then begin.