Reacting to the Senate’s failure to rebuke President Bush’s plan to reinforce our troops in Iraq, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced this week that the House will take up its own resolution next week. As we understand it, there will be three days of debate, offering enough time for each member of the House to speak for five minutes. Then there will be a vote on a resolution, the precise language of which is still being worked out behind closed doors on Capitol Hill.And not all Democrats are happy about this. Some freshmen who won in conservative districts in last year’s wave election will be hard-pressed to support their leadership on this issue, while the leftwing fringe is furious that all Pelosi is offering is a meaningless, non-binding resolution.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who is running for president on an anti-war platform, said, “Congress has a chance to do something real on the war. A nonbinding resolution just doesn’t cut it.” According to the New York Times, 71 House Democrats sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi urging “a stronger stance against the war, including setting a six-month timetable for withdrawing American forces from Iraq.” (Source: Gary Bauer)
