WASHINGTON -- Courting the anti-war constituency, Democratic presidential rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama both voted against legislation that pays for the Iraq war but lacks a timeline for troop withdrawal.
"I fully support our troops" but the measure "fails to compel the president to give our troops a new strategy in Iraq," said Clinton, a New York senator.
"Enough is enough," Obama, an Illinois senator, declared, adding that President Bush should not get "a blank check to continue down this same, disastrous path."
Their votes Thursday night continued a shift in position for the two presidential hopefuls, both of whom began the year shunning a deadline for a troop withdrawal.
Clinton and Obama are stumbling over themselves trying to appeal to the fringe Left base that rules the Democrat Party. I think John Edwards' current lead in Iowa has pushed Clinton and Obama to wander further from the center.
That's a gamble in the long term.
True, a candidate has to make it through the primaries first; but moving so far to the Left is dangerous as far as the general election goes.
Now that there are alternatives to the Old Media, Clinton and Obama aren't going to be able to manipulate the masses as easily as they could have years ago.
There are other sources of information now. The candidates' swing to the Left won't be forgotten even if they attempt to move back toward the center after securing the Democrat nomination.
Every move they make will be documented and discussed on radio. It will all be easily accessible on the Internet. Every faux pas and fake Southern drawl lives on You Tube.
The game is different now. The rules have changed.
Voting against funding for the troops may play well among the fringe radicals, but that's not the case when it comes to most Americans.
It's hard to believe the extent to which the Democrat candidates are willing to go to appease the hardcore Bush haters.
It's stunning.
The Democrats have really gone over the Left edge. Like their colleagues, Clinton and Obama aren't edging down a slippery slope into Liberalville; they are jumping off a cliff.
Roll Call
NAYs ---14
Boxer (D-CA)
Burr (R-NC)
Clinton (D-NY)
Coburn (R-OK)
Dodd (D-CT)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feingold (D-WI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Leahy (D-VT)
Obama (D-IL)
Sanders (I-VT)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)
____________________________
Read " 'A Big Mistake' Vote Gives Bush His Iraq Money," from The Nation.
So what are we left with? Not much to be encouraged by. Pelosi says this is not the end of the fight, that Democrats will press the president when additional Iraq spending demands come to the Congress in the summer and fall. The speaker's sincere; she does hold out hope for a turn of events that will make it possible to block Bush. And there is no reason not to wish her well. But the fact is that Democrats in the House and Senate remain divided to the point of dysfunction. And the anti-war camp is still far short of the numbers it needs to get Congress to check and balance Bush, not just in the Congress as a whole but in the Democratic caucuses of the House and Senate.
While it seemed in recent weeks that Congress might actually be prepared to stand up to the president, Feingold said Thursday "we are moving backward."
"Instead of forcing the President to safely redeploy our troops, instead of coming up with a strategy providing assistance to a post-redeployment Iraq, and instead of a renewed focus on the global fight against al-Qaeda," the frustrated senator said, "we are faced with a spending bill that kicks the can down the road and buys the Administration time."
Can you feel the Left's pain?
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