H.R. 1591

Days Until Bush Leaves Office = 635

Following the House vote on Wednesday, the Senate today passed and sent to the President the final Iraq spending bill. Since the bill contains legally binding provisions for a responsible end to the war, President Bush has vowed he will veto it.

That veto will be a turning point in the political struggle over our country’s Iraq policy. With no dictator left to depose, no weapons of mass destruction ever discovered, no link between Saddam and al Qaeda ever credibly established, and not a shred of legitimacy left to the administration’s original premises for starting the Iraq war, the administration and their Republican supporters in congress have stuck their head in the sand, repeating the word “progress” – none of them speaks about victory anymore – as though the word itself will rescue them from the consequences of their own policy failures. They have simply run out of options, out of ideas, and out of time. It is obvious that President Bush’s supporters now see, with the clarity peculiar to the blind, no other recourse for themselves but to follow their leader off a cliff, and are trying to drag the next president – and the country - over the brink with them. Americans will have none of it.

When President Bush issues his veto, it will mark the crossing of the final threshold of public patience with his administration and his war. Congressional Republicans may succeed in thwarting an override of Bush’s veto, this time. But all that does is put the issue right back in play without having moved the debate once inch in the administration’s direction. And with each passing week of public anger over the war, what support the president has left for his policies from congressional Republicans will steadily ebb away, finally disappearing altogether by Labor Day. When the veto occurs, mark it on your calendars as the day George W. Bush became a lame duck in office.