DO INSIDE THE BELTWAY DEMOCRATS KNOW HOW TO JUST SAY NO?

Sure they do. They know how to tell their own grassroots that there will be no impeachment charges of the monstrosity that infests the White House, the gunk on the soles of our shoes the thought of whom would have probably made the Founding Fathers give up and remain a colony of Great Britain. They know how to elect leaders vote counters like Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer who work behind the scenes to make it look like congressional Democrats are trying to enact progressive values without ever quite getting to them. They certainly know how to say no to the meaningful campaign finance reform that would separate them from their money-based power.

But on top of the hapless McCain's completely ingenuous suggestion that all the Republicans need is 8 more months, today's question is, can Democrats say no to the Bush Regime's latest demands for more money for further occupation of Iraq, a policy the vast majority of Americans reject? Today's Washington Post writes it up like a game. "Bush challenged Congress to another clash over the direction of the Iraq war yesterday as he asked for $46 billion more to pay for overseas military operations and insisted that they approve it by the end of the year." That makes $196 billion this year. Take that!

And they will. That's all they can do? And why? We may have been wrong about the "more and better Democrats" theme. It's all about "the better." More like this crew we don't need. More like this crew will get us more of what this crew has been dishing out. There isn't a single Republican in either House of Congress fit to be re-elected. I can't say off hand how many Democrats are. You might ask yourself if your own congresscritter is a member of the Out of Iraq Caucus or if they have signed the letter to Bush saying they wouldn't vote for one more cent for Iraq above the money needed to bring out troops home safely and in an orderly fashion.

"Democrats," declared the Post "vowed not to rubber-stamp the request and indicated that they will disregard Bush's holiday deadline, holding off any action until next year as they debate a new strategy to counter his leadership on the war." Yawn. Is that what it comes to? Giving him the money between Thanksgiving and Christmas or giving it to him after New Years? At the current rate Bush is spending it "war appropriations could reach $1 trillion by the time Bush leaves office, a total that by some measures would exceed the cost of the Korean and Vietnam wars combined."

The Democrats who won control of Congress last year on the back of public opposition to the Iraq war instantly denounced Bush's spending plan and ridiculed him for seeking so much for the conflicts after vetoing the expansion of a children's health insurance program just weeks earlier. But Bush's proposal will force Democrats to confront the politically volatile choice of again following his lead or refusing to provide everything he wants.

Rubber stamps... rubber stamps... where have I heard that before? Oh yes, it's how Democratics castigated Republicans who went along with all Bush's outrageous requests. The Democrats now have a majority in both houses of Congress and Bush's outrageous requests have grown more outrageous and they're still being rubber stamped. The woman who represents me in Congress, Diane Watson isn't doing that. In fact when she isn't voting with the progressive majority, she's voting better than they are-- like when she opposed H.R. 1591, the March 23 supplemental appropriations for the war. Are there Democrats who actually are rubber stamps for Bush's unspeakable agenda? You bet there are, and if you're a regular reader of DWT you probably recognize most of their names. If you need to be reminded, you'll find many of their names on the DCCC Front Line page, the Democratic incumbents who get almost all of the contributions you give to that organization. Here's the list of the 20 Democrats who vote most frequently with the Republicans on Iraq, when the chips are down-- from bad to worse:

Mike McIntyre (NC)
Eliot Engel (NY)
Charlie Melancon (LA)
Tim Mahoney (FL)
Bud Cramer (AL)
Harry Mitchell (AZ)
Melissa Bean (IL)
Jim Matheson (UT)
Zach Space (OH)
Baron Hill (IN)
Brad Ellsworth (IN)
Joe Donnelly (IN)
Dan Boren (OK)
Heath Shuler (NC)
Chris Carney (PA)
Jason Altmire (PA)
Gene Taylor (MS)
Nick Lampson (TX)
Jim Marshall (GA)
John Barrow (GA)

The ones in bold are among the 29 Democrats on the Front Line page, each considered a potentially endangered incumbent. Normally that's just freshmen. Interestingly the 5 non-freshmen on this list-- Barrow, Bean, Leonard Boswell (IA), Chet Edwards (TX), and Marshall-- are all conservatives who often stray from Democratic values and 3 of them are on the list of the 20 most disloyal Democrats in terms of Iraq votes. And of the 29 incumbents on the Front Line list 13 are on the list of the 20 Democrats who have voted with the Bush Regime most frequently on Iraq policies.