the Democrats' position should have been and can still be, that we refuse to fund the war, that we don't give this president a dime to keep the war going, that we use money in the pipeline to bring the troops home and set in motion a parallel process that would secure Iraq. We're under no obligation to keep this war going.

But I would say, Amy, that if you look at the budget, which is facing Congress tomorrow, it provides not only $145 billion for fiscal year `08 for the war, for all of it, but another $50 billion for fiscal year 2009. I wonder how that squares with Democratic leaders' position that they want to bring the troops home in March or in September of next year. There's something that's contradictory here.

So I'm going to try to see if I can reconcile that today in Congress by talking to leadership and alerting my fellow members that money is in the budget to keep this war going past President Bush's term. President Bush has been very clear. He's going to keep this war going through the end of his term. I say that American should get out now, that it's not a choice between President Bush or keeping the war going another year, year and a half. We need to get out now, and we need to let the troops know we truly support them, by bringing them home.

Bush has it backwards.

But the Dems have not put themselves in the right position on this. They will fund the war.

But they will not announce a date certain for not funding it.

That is the flaw in the Dems; approach here.

The confrontation is set up in a way that the Dems WILL blink.

As we all know, 59% of Americans back the troop withdrawal deadline.

Bush has also set a drop dead date of April 15th, after which "our men and women in uniform will face significant disruptions."

How quickly the tables turn.  If the Senate passes a similar bill next week, with the easter recess coming up, a Bush veto will almost certainly mean that the April 15th deadline will not be met.  Thus you will have The President refusing to accept funding for his war because he refuses to accept conditions supported by a vast majority of Americans.

I suspect what Bush would do is sign the bill with some type of signing statement saying that the deadline is an unconstitutional infringement of his C in C powers and therfore he is not bound by it.  He'll figure once they've appropriated the money there's nothing else they can do and by the end of 2008 it'll be someone else's problem anyway.

What would be his point, now? Why is he still insisting he will veto, if he has no intention to veto it?

From the NYTIMES.

Now, some of them believe that by delaying funding for our troops, they can force me to accept restrictions on our commanders that I believe would make withdrawal and defeat more likely," Mr. Bush said. "That's not going to happen. If Congress fails to pass a bill to fund our troops on the front lines, the American people will know who to hold responsible."

The president, speaking to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association here a day after the Senate endorsed the withdrawal of most American troops by March 31, 2008, said that the people of Iraq had already shown their desire to run their own country by voting in free elections, that Iraqi security forces are gaining strength with American help, and that the outcome in Iraq "will affect a generation of Americans."

Far from sounding conciliatory, Mr. Bush hurled a dismissive dart at the lawmakers as he asserted that the emergency war-spending bills approved by the House and under consideration by the Senate were loaded with special-interest items, some of them downright silly.

"There's $3.5 million for visitors to tour the Capitol and see for themselves how Congress works," Mr. Bush said, drawing laughs from the friendly audience. "I'm not kidding you."

"Here's the bottom line," Mr. Bush went on. "The House and Senate bills have too much pork, too many conditions on our commanders and an artificial timetable for withdrawal. And I have made it clear for weeks if either version comes to my desk, I'm going to veto it." (Mr. Bush has used his veto power only once, in 2005, to reject a measure that would have expanded federal financing for embryonic stem cell research.)