Supine.

Question: how long does it take for the Democratic Party leadership to cave in on issues of life and death? Answer: less time than it takes to ask the question. Yep, old "Give 'em hell" Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and kin have signed away the farm to mister 28% himself, Dubya Bush, who is now bound by no restrictions - fiscal or legal - in his prosecution of the disastrous war he started more than four years ago. This in the wake of yet another 9 U.S. service members killed and god knows how many Iraqis - scores over the past few days. I know I'm not the only one saying W.T.F., though it's not so much out of surprise as it is just pure exasperation. I mean, a watery timeline for withdrawal with a plethora of caveats - that hardly constituted a radical departure from Rumsfeldian warmaking (precisely what we need). And yet that has morphed into a no-strings-attached allocation of billions for the continued occupation of Iraq. Is that what people voted for last November? Was that the theme called out from the podium as party leaders implored us to turn the G.O.P. out? Not hardly.

There are many who will argue that this is the only avenue open to opponents of the war; that this supplemental spending plan is a strategic move and a prelude to a more meaningful confrontation down the road. Perhaps we can be forgiven for a certain amount of skepticism in this regard. Many of those supporting this bill also voted with the Republicans to start this war in the first place. Their strategy now as well as then is to make their re-election battles a bit easier - that is to say, they want to pre-empt those 30-second RNC-sponsored attack ads slamming them for cutting funding for "our troops" in the middle of a war. They counsel patience, like the G.O.P. leadership, which is becoming a bit nervous about the war themselves... but which now can point to their opponents as partly responsible for the mess. Of course, patience only means more deaths, more amputees, more head cases, and more Fallujah-like mass killings. Waiting until September to re-evaluate the "surge" strategy could cost hundreds more American deaths, followed by some equally bone-headed tactic.

This is criminal behavior, pure and simple. Bush wants to keep this sucker going so that it won't be "lost" on his watch (or "watch", as many might put it). The Democratic leadership, for its part, refuses to draw a firm line in front of the president even when his popularity is at a historic low, largely due to the war in Iraq (even in my moderate-to-conservative district, Bush polled about 28% in a recent Web survey by the local daily paper - that's almost unprecedented for a Republican). It's obvious that neither of the major political power centers in this country is going to put a stop to this slaughter. And judging by the news coming out of Iraq - Parliament supporting a timetable for withdrawal, Muqtada al-Sadr re-emerging, Iraqi youth in Basra (!) cheering over a burning security contractor vehicle - it may in fact take the Iraqis to send our military home. Until we can get ourselves politically beyond the idea that "supporting the troops" means extending their service in a hell hole, I see no other way out.

Unless, of course, we all just stand in the street until they end it. There's that, too.

luv u,

jp