Congress (GOP led) to Bush...it's time for an Iraq exit strategy...

Man, Dubya is having trouble with his own party trying to nail him down to reality...his life as a lame duck President is starting to really suck only a few months after the start of his second term.

Faced with plummeting public support for the war in Iraq, a growing number of members of Congress from both parties are reevaluating the reasons for the invasion and demanding the Bush administration produce a plan for withdrawing US troops.

A bipartisan group of House members is drafting a resolution that calls on the administration to present a strategy for getting the United States out of Iraq, reflecting an increasing restlessness about the war in a chamber that 2 1/2 years ago voted overwhelmingly to support the use of force in Iraq.

The House International Relations Committee on Thursday approved a similar proposal, 32 to 9, with strong bipartisan support. Sponsored by Representative Joseph Crowley, a New York Democrat who voted to authorize force in Iraq in 2002, the proposal represents the first time a congressional committee has moved to demand steps be taken so that US troops can start coming home.

More than 100 Democrats -- including 11 who voted for the war resolution -- have signed onto a letter to President Bush requesting an explanation of the so-called Downing Street memo, a British document that charges the administration planned to go to war even without hard evidence of the presence of weapons of mass destruction.

The proposed resolutions would not have the force of law, if approved by the House and Senate. But the actions reflect discontent among lawmakers in both parties who are hearing constituent complaints about the war's escalating body counts and uncertain end.

The eroding support for the war, the Downing Street Memo, the fact that, as one House GOP member once commented "I don't believe the president understands that though he never again will run for any office, we have to run every two years" (thus they are more accountable to the people), the troubles he's having with his domestic agenda...Bush seems on the ropes. Support for his plan to privatize Social Security has all but evaporated (thanks, in part, to a campaign on the Internet similar to the one now being waged concerning the Downing Street Memo). He is faced with a promised veto on a bill on stem cell research funding that passed Congress with the strong support of the GOP. His party's plan to make the Senate a judicial nominee rubber-stamp went down in flames...due to the compromise hammered out by Senators from his own party.

The pressure is on him from all fronts...he's failed in foreign policy, he's failed in domestic policy, his much-touted anti-gay amendment hasn't even been mentioned in months (good riddence), his poll numbers are at record lows, and now Congress is pushing (from both sides of the aisle) to end the "Vietnam in the sand".

I'd like to see the results if the 2004 Presidental election were held today.

Join the call for investigation. (496,032 signatures, out of 500,000, as of this post!)

Get your Senators involved.

BBA

Downing Street Memo