"The President Would Be A Fool...."

Here's a blatantly copied post by thomaslb at Living Next Door To Alice (see Recommended sidebar). He's absolutely right; but, given that Bush is incapable of acting in a politically astute manner, Bush will ignore his advice.

"If you want to read for yourself the text of H.R. 1591, the bill that would tie emergency war funding to a phased troop withdrawal redeployment, you can find it HERE .It's amazing how non-specific it is. It gives the president $200 million dollars to give to Pakistan, Jordan, and anybody else he wants to. He has to report to congress who he gave it to, but other than that there are almost no strings attached. They just trust him to spend it responsibly.Here's the bit about troop redeployment:

(2) COMMENCEMENT OF PHASED REDEPLOYMENT FROM IRAQ- The President shall commence the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq not later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, with the goal of redeploying, by March 31, 2008, all United States combat forces from Iraq except for a limited number that are essential for the following purposes: (A) Protecting United States and coalition personnel and infrastructure. (B) Training and equipping Iraqi forces. (C) Conducting targeted counter-terrorism operations.

That gives Bush an awful lot of leeway. He could make the argument that "protecting infrastructure" is what they're doing already. It sounds to me like we're still going to kill anybody we want, and we're still going to have our hands on the oil spigots, and the puppet Iraqi government must still dance when we pull the stings. The president would be a fool to veto this. It gives him everything he wants. Again."