Congressional Dems Have Become the Kings of Kabuki

Congress these days under Dem control seems like one never-ending kabuki dance. Lots of motion and emotion with nothing actually accomplished. We have in one ballroom the hearing on the non-scandal of the president using his constitutional perogative to replace U.S. Attorneys as he wishes, a power that despite the faux outrage from Chuckie Shumer and others, can't be disputed. And in the main ballrooms of both houses you have the "bribes for votes" dance going on in which billions of dollars of taxpayer funds are used to compromise principles and buy votes on legislation which doesn't have a prayer of becoming law. It's all quite impressive.

Today's Wall Street Journal asks an important question: When all the dancing is done and the president does his job by vetoing the arbitrary deadlines in the Iraq supplemental bill, when will Congress actually do their job and fund the troops?

Congress leaves for Easter recess today, with Democrats congratulating themselves for having endorsed, by the narrowest of margins, "a deadline" for withdrawal from Iraq. The press corps is also praising their "cohesion." Wonderful. Now that MoveOn.org is happy, maybe Congress will finally fund the troops.

Democrats are calling this, in short form, the "Iraq Accountability Act," but the key word in that construction is the last one. This is all an act. This week the Senate joined the House in passing a "deadline" for Iraq withdrawal that Members know has no chance of becoming law. President Bush has promised a veto, and the eyelash victories in both houses show that his veto will be sustained with ease...

This vote allows Democrats to claim they opposed General David Petraeus's plan to stabilize Baghdad, even as they let him fight. The troops must be pleased with that indulgence. If the plan fails, as Democrats expect, Mr. Bush will get the blame. If it succeeds, well, they figure no one will remember their pessimism a year from now. Either way, "accountability" is the last word to use for this exercise.

Meanwhile, the troops on the line are waiting for their money, and they'll have to wait a while longer. When they return from their holiday, House and Senate leaders will have to "reconcile" their bills, which could take more weeks. Because the bills are packed with some $21 billion in pork, as well as differing versions of a minimum wage increase, the Members will be fiddling over their domestic priorities rather than financing the war. Then they can finally present their "message" to the White House for Mr. Bush to veto, at which point they'll get to start all over.

The spectacle qualifies as a textbook example of why Congress can't be trusted to micromanage, much less lead, a war. It's a committee of Lilliputians whose main contribution is to tie down the President so that his policy fails. Few bills deserve a veto as much as this one. And once Mr. Bush dispatches it, we hope Congress will fulfill the one war power it does have, which is to appropriate enough money so our troops can accomplish their mission.

So who's going to blink first? I don't see any give in the president, and are the Dems so enslaved by the wacky left base that they don't dare give on the artificial timelines? Will they allow our forces to suffer to please the nutroots?

Yes, they probably will. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if this was all part of the plan. Rather than vote to cut off funding, they simply send legislation to the president that he can't possibly sign, blame the impasse on him, and then allow the effort in Iraq to fail because of starvation. This may well be a variation on Murtha's "slow bleed".

The Dems think they can fool people into believing that it's the president who is not "supporting the troops" by vetoing the pork-ridden supplemental bill, but the people are not stupid and there's never been any doubt about President Bush's commitment to the troops. The same cannot be said for the Dems.