No Cover

The Chicago Tribune - having already fired a warning shot across the bow of the SS Pelosi, drives home the flat stupidity of the effort to pass a supplemental spending bill with timetables for troop withdrawals. No more media cover, Nancy and Harry. You're on your own now.

 Democrats — who prevailed in narrow votes in the House and Senate — recognize that there is a deep public unease over the extended U.S. involvement in Iraq. You won't find a U.S. citizen who doesn't dearly hope that this nation will be able to begin a withdrawal by Oct. 1, as the bill demands.

 And maybe the U.S. will be in position to do that. But establishing a congressionally mandated timetable for withdrawal would straitjacket the ability of Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander on the ground, to pursue the stabilization of Iraq as events and conditions warrant.

Sen. Harry Reid said recently the war is "lost." This legislation would all but guarantee it.

The narrow votes in the House and Senate establish that Democrats won't be able to override a presidential veto. So now that they've gone through the process of approving legislation that won't become law, the question is: What next?

After the bill is vetoed, Democrats will have a choice. They could try to starve the war effort by refusing to approve money for it. The Pentagon says it can pay for the Iraq war with existing funds only through June.

The alternative: decide that they have made their point and give Petraeus and his troops the flexibility they need to pursue their mission. And that's what Democrats need to do. Capitol Hill can't run a war.

If the Democratic leadership continues on it's quest to pander to the left, they will face an increasingly hostile media. This is just about as clear and open a warning as an editorial can make and still try to sound objective. Democrats were not given a mandate to lose a war. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are well on their way toward being widely reviled in the Democratic party.