"Mr. Speaker, I'm sorry I cannot fully participate in all of the camaraderie that is accompanying this legislation because of the huge amount of money that is in this bill to fund the war in Iraq without any conditions, without any limitation on time spent there.  We sent the original bill to the Senate with conditions and they struck it.  We have no choice.  This is not about a failure of the House of Representatives.  It's about what we cannot get past the next body and onto the next President's desk.

~ Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 6/19/08 (emphasis mine)

Silly me. I was under the impression from elementary school history class that the House of Representatives controlled the power of the purse and was equivalent in stature to the executive branch. Obviously I was just told a lie by my crazy Ecuadoran teacher.

When did Congress get to be so impotent? In 1995 the Speaker shut down the government over what may have been as infantile as a snub on an airplane. But now it is acceptable for Congress to accept administration policies that blatantly curtail or destroy civil liberties just because 'its the best we can do.'

In the '06 elections the Democrats were swept into power on a wave of voter dissatisfaction with the war and other administration policies. Little has changed. Within weeks of the '06 win Pelosi was announcing that the Democrats would do nothing to cut funding off for the war.

This final quote really galls me.

Let me remove all doubt in anyone's mind; as long as our troops are in harm's way, Democrats will be there to support them, but... we will have oversight over that funding.

So Nancy, let me get this straight, ok? You talk about how you can't even tell the troops why they are there. You talk about how they don't have the right equipment, you talk about how their presence there undermines our nations interest, you talk about how they are not safe, you talk about how nobody knows when they will be coming home. But then you go and sell them up the river for another 6-9 months for a few tens of billions in deficit spending on entitlements? I don't know what everybody else thinks, but that sounds like a blank check to me.

I'm sure it's all good. She knows better than the people that elected her and her ilk. I'm sure she could explain how this legislation goes along with her goal of bringing the troops home safe and soon.

Look at the final vote. 2/3rds of Democrats voting cast their ballots against this measure. This suggests to me at least one of two possibilites:

1. Many of the rank and file are hearing about it from the folks back home and are tired of these shenanigans. The only question is will they get it together and finally become outraged enough to end this disaster at some point in the near future?

2. They knew it would pass and let the blue dog democrats in the right leaning districts vote for it to get it over the margin required for passage. However, many of them voted against it (including Pelosi) so they could equivocate and cover their bases. Even though they worked in the background for the bill to go through their final vote at the end can be used in the '08 re-election campaigns back home when constituents want to know what they did to stand up to Bush.

Any ideas?