The Daily Background

This is it: the whole thing is melting around the President.

• Senator McCain, the most prominent supporter of the escalation ideology probably won’t support the President’s surge which is said to be between 4,000 to 20,000 troops (it’s likely that there are less than 20,000 troops to deploy, so the President will deploy less than that- CBS says there are only 9,000 available). McCain wants 25,000 or 30,000 min which Bush can’t call for if he doesn’t have the troops for it (this may figure into McCain’s plan).
• Democrats in Congress are Flat-Out, Completely, Horizontally Opposed^tm to the surge plan. And Democrats are now in the majority. Democrats can totally outpower Republicans in the House on this issue, if they choose to. And it looks like they choose to. (Pelosi on Face The Nation today: “if the president wants to add to this mission, he is going to have to justify it. And this is new for him because up until now the Republican Congress has given him a blank check with no oversight, no standards, no conditions. And we’ve gone into this situation, which is a war without end, which the American people have rejected.”)
• Few GOP Senators will support the escalation. Even less will politically be able to afford it. At least, this is according Novak. WHo may be totally wrong. But at the very least, it is true that several Republican Senators will not support the escalation plan.

By the way, check out our freshly-updated list of generals, experts and other Important People^tm who oppose the President’s escalation plan.

Filed under: Iraq Related, Z-TDB Blog