Trial Balloons Reach Speed Of Light
The Democrats are floating trial balloons so fast, they have actually set new speed records with them. Literally just hours after they tried to float one about possibly cutting some funds out of the military budget, they reversed course so fast that reporters got whiplash trying to follow them. They now say they have no intention whatsoever of cutting the funds.
WASHINGTON - Just hours after floating the idea of cutting $20 billion from President Bush's $142 billion request for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan next year, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad was overruled by fellow Democrats Thursday.
"It's nothing that any of us are considering," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., told reporters.
Conrad's trial balloon to cut war funding would have affected the budget year beginning Oct. 1 and was separate from the ongoing debate over Bush's $100 billion request for immediate supplemental funding for Iraq and Afghanistan.
Their stance on Iraq has nothing - not one thing - to actually do with the war. They are playing politics with their eyes on 2008, it really isn't about the war or the troops at all. They are searching for a way to cause political damage to the administration without making themselves vulnerable to the fallout from that damage. The real problem here is the horrible message that is being sent to both allies and enemies.
By crosspatch, Thursday, 1 March , 2007 @ 3:45 pm
“They are searching for a way to cause political damage to the administration without making themselves vulnerable to the fallout from that damage.”
I think the real problem is that the Republicans have been guarding the tightly held secret that Bush isn’t going to run in 2008. The Democrats see that Bush Bashing won for them in 2006 so they are going to keep it up until 2008. Funny thing is … if the surge works and Bush’s popularity numbers rise, bashing Bush will backfire on them. That’s the sad fact of politics … it is only safe to kick someone when they are down.
By Sissy Willis, Thursday, 1 March , 2007 @ 4:40 pm
It goes without saying that Pelosi & Company hold us brain-dead plebes in total contempt, but your headline, “Trial Balloons Reach Speed Of Light” got me floating off into “Brazil” endgame dreams:
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/underwater-express-submarine-utilizes-bubbles-for-speed-240121.php
By cfaller96, Friday, 2 March , 2007 @ 11:25 am
Umm, Gaius, you do realize that the link you included does not contain the passage you highlighted, right? I assume the other commenters didn’t check, since they didn’t mention it. The link you included took me to an article about how Dems are about to introduce some sort of 6 month withdrawal plan, if the surge benchmarks aren’t met and violence isn’t reduced. Kent Conrad isn’t mentioned, nor is a $20 billion funding cut.
Where is the link for the passage that you cited, Gaius?
And to crosspatch- if the surge works, and if Bush’s popularity numbers rise…? What will you do if that doesn’t pan out? Does a reality that you don’t like change anything, in your mind? Are you supportive of this war, no matter what happens on the ground, no matter the cost, and no matter the time? If not, what will it take to change your mind?
By Quilly Mammoth, Friday, 2 March , 2007 @ 2:14 pm
::clip-clop clip-clop::
Dude, you do know that news aggregators like Yahoo carry the most recent iteration of a wire report…don’t you? And that wire services often send the same story again but wuth different editing…don’t you? Oh. I guess not.
On the other hand, newspapers generally carry on their sites the one they published. And Google is your friend. So here, CFaller96, is some cites for you to chew on.
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2007/03/02/news/state/129614.txt
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070302/REPOSITORY/703020371/1013/48HOURS
http://www.nypost.com/seven/03022007/news/nationalnews/dems_block_20b_war_cut_nationalnews_.htm
http://www.myfoxaustin.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=2539335&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.3.1
And here’s the Google search so you can repeat this little experiment yourself.
http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GWYA,GWYA:2006-05,GWYA:en&oe=UTF-8&um=1&tab=wn&q=%22Conrad%27s+trial+balloon%22&filter=0
No need to thank me.
By cfaller96, Monday, 5 March , 2007 @ 1:44 pm
Well, I don’t know that this is a case of “editing,” since they were completely different stories, and you drew on different sources (no Yahoo links in your comment, and no Yahoo hits in your search) to produce the excerpt that Gaius referenced. I’m sure showing the cache could settle this argument, but something tells me I shouldn’t hold my breath for that.
In the meantime, thank you thank you THANK YOU Quilly for finding a link that Gaius didn’t include in his post (but should have). My God, I am SUCH a jerk for clicking through to the link Gaius provided and noticing that it didn’t jibe with what he said, and pointing it out. I should know better.
Quilly, the mistake was made by Gaius, not by me. No need to get pissy at me for pointing out a problem with the link.