House Democrats prioritize loyalty to the president over their own judgment

[Orwellian_Ghost]

Wednesday June 17, 2009 09:18 EDT
House Democrats prioritize loyalty to the president over their own judgment

(updated below)

Thanks largely to the tenacious, resourceful efforts of a handful of bloggers -- Jane Hamsher, Howie Klein, Bob Fertik, and David Swanson -- the White House was forced to scrape, claw, cajole and threaten in order to scrounge up enough House Democratic votes yesterday to pass its $100 billion war funding and foreign-bank bailout bill. The administration succeeded only by convincing 19 House Democrats who had voted against the war spending bill just last month to switch their votes, and they even had to resort to having Obama himself call House members to whip up enough votes for passage.

The Washington Post's Perry Bacon reports what motivated at least some of the vote-switching in the House -- it was not support for the bill, but rather, political "loyalty" to the President:

The House today passed a $106 billion bill funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through September, as House Democrats backed President Obama despite misgivings among the ranks about his strategy in Afghanistan.

The 226 to 202 vote came after Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner had called some reluctant Democrats during the day imploring them to back the bill, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had strongly pressed her colleagues in a closed-door meeting to vote for the bill in a show of support for Obama, even if they oppose his strategy for increasing troops in Afghanistan. . . .

"We are in the process of wrapping up the wars. The president needed our support," said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), who had earlier said he opposed the war funding but voted for it in the end. "But the substance still sucks" . . . .

<snip>

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/17/congress/index.html

[Winterblues]

1. On May 14th of this year Obama got passed an $85 billion supplemental War Spending bill

He promised at that time that "Never Again" would "war" spending be "off budget" He said that his Budget was projected out ten years and that "Never Again" would money be hidden from budget figures. June 15th only one month later Obama got another $105 billion in "Never Again" Supplemental "war" Spending. His word is become as Credible as Cheney or Bush*.