Harry Reid pulled the plug on an effort to get the DREAM act passed in the defense authorization bill:

"We will move to proceed to this matter before we leave here. I"m going to do my utmost to do it by November 16," Mr. Reid, Nevada Democrat, said last night.

The proposal faced strong opposition from Republicans who objected to mixing immigration with the defense bill and who vowed to filibuster to defeat the measure if Democrats insisted on bringing it up now.

The atmosphere around any kind of immigration reform is extremely poisonous. The flaw of this bill is in the proof of residency, as this Heritage report tells us:

There is no upper age limit. Any illegal alien can walk into a U.S. Customs and Immigration Ser­vices office and declare that he is eligible. For example, a 45 year old can claim that he illegally entered the United States 30 years ago at the age of 15. There is no requirement that the alien prove that he entered the United States at the claimed time by providing particular documents. The DREAM Act's Section 4(a) merely requires him to "demonstrate" that he is eligible-which in practice could mean simply making a sworn statement to that effect. Thus, it is an invitation for just about every illegal alien to fraudulently claim the amnesty.

There might be a good law waiting to be made around the idea of a pass to illegal aliens who broke the law through the actions of their parents and not on their own accord. But this isn't it.

Reid and the other Democrats may give this another go, but without key Republicans and the White House on board, it's probably a lost cause for them.

Don't look now, but if Congress doesn't reach some sort of an agreement for the next fiscal year's budget, the federal government will run out of money on Oct 1. Although political rhetoric is high, there is little chance of the Democrats going down the Newt Gingrich 1995 path and shutting down the government - primarily because they recognize that Newt's battle with President Bill Clinton was largely seen as a victory for Clinton, making Newt even more demonizable (is that a word?) until his exit from Congress in 1998. So, Democrat leaders are going to propose an interim budget to give them more time to "negotiate" with the White House on spending issues.

The draft resolution, which is still being finalized, is intended to buy as many as six additional weeks for negotiations, though Democrats are pessimistic about their chances of making much progress with Mr. Bush. With the exception of veterans' health care and border-security funds, the White House has signaled little flexibility, and neither House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) nor Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) appears to have much appetite for a protracted fight. "I don't want a headache. I want to try to work this out," Mr. Reid said last week after meeting with White House Budget Director Jim Nussle. At the same time as the standoff over domestic spending, Congress is being asked by Mr. Bush to provide more money to implement his Iraq policy, which the top leaders adamantly oppose.

With President Bush emboldened after his victories in Congress last week, his threats of vetoes are being taken more seriously by the Democrats. The Dems simply don't have enough votes to override any Presidential veto right now, be it on the war or general spending. That's not likely to change over the next six weeks, so look for the Democrats to capitulate on many of the White House's demands in the final budget, especially in matters regarding defense spending and funding the War in Iraq. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi believe, rightly so, that giving in on war spending at this precise moment, having lost all anti-war votes so far this fall session, would be the final straw for much of their far-left base. Hence the postponement of the final budget.

New Virginia Senator James Webb tried an end run to stop the war in Iraq, by limiting the deployment options of the military. The idea of guaranteeing time between deployments made great sense rhetorically and it was hoped the idea of supporting the troops while stopping the war would enable them to pick off enough senators to get it done.

But it was not to be, as the WaPo reports, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is now giving up on clever strategies and going back to the old strategy which did not work last spring:

Instead, Reid will again push for a firm deadline, this time June 2008, along with a stronger effort at cutting off war funding.

"It's all definite timelines," Reid said.

The Senate will resume the war debate today, and Reid invited Republicans to offer proposals. His spokesman said that several possibilities are being negotiated, although it appeared unlikely they will meet the 60-vote threshold to pass.

Public approval ratings: President Bush: 29%. Congress: 11%.

That is the result of a recent Zogby Poll.

So what can you say about a situation that words can not aptly describe? In essence, you have two competing forces -- the Bush administration and the Democratic Congress -- in control of the Executive Branch and the Legislature whom the public absolutely despises? How about "You need to get your act together. Both of you."

It is difficult to pinpoint any one particular issue that has led to this drop because most of the problems are so voluminous that it's getting to the point where the public is longing for the good old days when King George ran the show. You have the emergence of a mortgage crisis that no one seems to know how to address; the current attempt to pass a piece meal amnesty program, the DREAM Act, in bold defiance of the public's will; the Democratic leadership getting lumped in with the far, far left due to the now legendarily disastrous "Betray Us" ad; the President planning on vetoing the bill that will de-fund the incredibly anti-union/anti-middle class Mexican truck program; refusal to deal with the importation of unsafe goods from China; and on and on and on.

While few assumed that President Bush's approval ratings could get worse, they have and the Pelosi/Reid Congress has been an absolute, unmitigated failure. 11% is the lowest approval rating in the history of the United States.

Let's put that into perspective: Bush is right up (down) there with Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and this Congress is less popular than the Congress that served during the time when half the country seceded from the union and a war broke out that saw 600,000 casualties.

Will things get better? Can they get any worse?

In what may prove to be good news for soldiers who have been on the battlefield for a long time coming, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has announced it would not be out of the possibility to reduce troop numbers down to about 100,000 by summer of 2008. (The figure is far below what President Bush had predicted to be possible and Gate's notion of possible troop reductions is not an official plan of action) Such significant troop reductions also, of course, would signal that the mission is Iraq is proving successful as there is less need for 160,000 troops to keep the nation stabilized. Let it be known, however, that Gates has also mentioned that the situation in Iraq could always change for the worse and this would negatively impact his troop reduction optimism.

Democrats in the Senate, however, have still claim that the mission in Iraq is failing and reiterated many of the same points they have already made in the past. Per the AP:

"As hard as they may have tried to spin it, today's assessment by the White House on the political situation in Iraq once again shows that the president's flawed escalation policy is not working," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement. "It certainly does not justify keeping 130,000 soldiers mired in an open-ended civil war as the president has chosen to do."

But does the public believe this in light of General David Petraeus' testimony regarding the mission in Iraq being a success?

Also, the gradual troop cuts could prove beneficial to the GOP as it may release voter anxiety in districts where support for the war is wavering. While this is difficult to say how much gradual troop cuts will help is difficult to say. It can be safely assumed that as long as the violence in Iraq stays down, American casualties stay down and incremental troop reductions occur, voter anxiety may quell somewhat.

The title of this post, Dems Divided on Iraq, was not what Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and the mainstream media were planning for September '07. They had all assumed that it would be the Republicans who would be divided after the various congressionally-mandated reports came in -- that's what those reports were designed for. And after the Democrats made quick work of General Petraeus on the Hill? Well, the Dem leadership didn't just expect Republicans to join them in surrender, I'm certain they expected many in the GOP in Congress to beg Reid and Pelosi to allow them into the Democratic Party.

But that's not what is happening. Over at ABC's The Note (a very reliable friend of the Dems), Rick Klein and Company tell us that the real division is among the Democrats:

Start from this point: This is not what Democrats thought September would bring. Though the reviews from last night's speech were lukewarm, the Republican Party appears more united behind the president, not less -- galvanized more by Gen. David Petraeus' congressional testimony than anything Bush himself said. The liberal base is beyond restless -- and showing that the Democrats' most ardent supporters can be a recurring drag on party unity. And the Democratic presidential candidates are pushing competing proposals that largely agree on one point: The Democratic Congress isn't doing enough to hasten an end to the war.

Consider this stubborn fact: "There will actually be 7,000 more troops in Iraq next summer than there were before Bush deployed additional forces to Iraq in January as part of a troop surge plan to quell sectarian violence," ABC's Martha Raddatz and Jennifer Parker report. That's hardly the scorecard Democrats wanted to be able to point to when they took control of Congress eight months ago.

The excuse Klein helpfully promotes in the article is that the Democrats mean well, but just don't have enough votes. That will be seen as a clarion call for organizations like MoveOn.org and its ilk to get more and more shrill, and move the Dems as a whole further and further to the Left. As the Left consumes fellow Democrats, calling for the replacement of any Dem that deviates from their world view, the general voting public will pay attention to their words and tactics - and will not be impressed. The centrism of the Bill Clinton years is about to vanish - and with it the moderate Democrats and Independents that were the key to electoral success from 1992-2000. If only the Republicans could take advantage...

It would appear that General Petraeus' report has done very little to sway the opinions of the Democrats in the Senate. Majority Leader Harry Reid has blasted Petraeus' Iraq plan (which includes drawing down 5,000+ troops by the end of the year and close to an additional 30,000 by summer's end) Reid echoed the sentiment of Speaker Nancy Pelosi that was expressed yesterday in a press release that lambasted Petraeus' plan.

According to the AP, Democrat leadership would prefer a more rapid withdrawal of a significant number of troops and the remaining troops would serve in a more limited capacity.

This posturing by the Democrats may have SERIOUS repercussions if the public relations strategy they are employing fails. Within much of the public, there is a sentiment growing that the Democrats are posturing against Petraeus as a means of scoring political points in order to win in the next election. If the Democrats become pegged as a party that seeks its own agenda at the risk of causing serious harm to the troops in the field, the public will become resentful and the Democrats may find themselves in trouble with a segment of the voting population.

Democratic leadership in both the House and Senate find themselves in a serious bind. With the Petraeus report scheduled to be delivered to Congress on September 11th detailing the effectiveness of the surge, our esteemed elected leaders know full-well that we have made progress and they must stifle it. They find themselves between what's right for the country--a successful outcome in Iraq--and their simmering base who want them to cut and run at the first opportunity this fall. The power of the far-left was on display this summer as every important candidate prostrated themselves at the feet of the new far-left powerbroker, Markos Moulitsas. The far left is really mad and the Dems are stuck in an uncomfortable position--bow to the angry base or lose the Presidential election.

The Petraeus report is their worst nightmare--a detailed document showing success in Anbar Province that was unthinkable a year ago. A strategy set forth in Iraq that dramatically improved the situation for our troops and the residents who live there. In other words, the report will contain good news from Iraq and the Democrats can't have that because popular opinion may well shift towards winning this war and not retreat. Although sectarian violence continues as witnessed by recent horrific bombings, our forces seem confident they can have and can address that issue as well.

How worried are the Dems? So worried that Senator Chucky Schumer demeaned our troops (and was rebuked from Fallujah with great haste), Leader Harry Reid won't even use Petraeus' name when discussing the report and the report has been attacked as fiction before it is even delivered. That sounds to me as though they are very worried.

We are at a crucial point once again in the Iraq war as well as the greater War on Terror, it's time the elected representatives step up, vote for the good of their country and not for the good of their reelection and allow General Petraeus to speak his mind without belittling his report before he even delivers it.

With only one week left until General Petraeus' report to Congress, the rhetoric is likely to increase about the success of the surge in Iraq and congressional reaction to it.

Over the August break, both sides have stepped up their efforts to display the war in the best or worst light possible with Freedoms Watch launching an ad blitz aimed at Blue Dog Democrats who have to this point supported the war but may waver and MoveOn.org targeting vulnerable Republicans in their home districts.

Now that Congress is back in session, the leadership skills of Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Pelosi will be tested. The left-wing will no longer abide Pelosi's inept skills in dealing with her caucus on the war and she will have to rein in those who differ in opinion. That will be particularly difficult when it comes to the freshmen Blue Dogs who will pay dearly in their home districts if they cave to the defeatists.

The surge is working. That is no longer even debatable as every credible news source has been forced to admit albeit with as negative a spin as possible. Troop death are down considerably and Moqtada al-Sadr has even vowed to play nice, albeit for later advantage if Congress should retreat. Is everything rosy? No, and it may not be so for some time, yet the situation is improving better than any war supporter hoped and any anti-warrior feared. We still have a ways to go but we are making incredible progress (in many but not all areas) if the embeds on the ground are to be believed.

In addition to his unexpected visit to the Anbar province in Baghdad, President Bush made the surprising statement that it may be possible to begin a gradual reduction in troop numbers. Bush was not, however, inferring that there would be a phased withdrawal in the sense that the mission had failed. Rather Bush explicitly stated that any troop withdrawals would be from a position of strength as opposed to bowing to any political, international or media pressure.

According to Reuters, Bush had expressed the sentiment that if military commanders deemed it possible to maintain the current levels of security with smaller numbers of troops, the president would consider reducing troop levels as it would be from a position of strength and not weakness. Once again, the president would make the decision based upon the recommendation of military commanders and not any sources of external pressure.

It would seem that yet another showdown between the President and Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid over funding for the troops is looming. Much of the upcoming debate will surely revolve around the current situation where the Iraqi government has proven to be woefully incompetent and unable to provide the necessary political solutions such as passing the oft delayed oil revenue sharing bill required to aid in stabilizing the country.

In a move sure to inflame the left, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is backing off his demands for surrender in Iraq, at least for now, in an attempt to move recalcitrant Republicans to his side. From the front page of this morning's Washington Post:

Saying the coming weeks will be "one of the last opportunities" to alter the course of the war, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said he is now willing to compromise with Republicans to find ways to limit troop deployments in Iraq. Reid acknowledged that his previous firm demand for a spring withdrawal deadline had become an obstacle for a small but growing number of Republicans who have said they want to end the war but have been unwilling to set a timeline. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid said he will encourage new coalitions. "There is no reason that this be Democrat versus Republican," he said.

"I don't think we have to think that our way is the only way," Reid said of specific dates during an interview in his office here. "I'm not saying, 'Republicans, do what we want to do.' Just give me something that you think you would like to do, that accomplishes some or all of what I want to do."

The questions that the Post should have posed to Reid at that time is the following: "What do you really want to accomplish? Do you want to win or lose in Iraq?" His response would probably be the craven "I'm calling for withdrawal for the welfare of the troops". My belief, as is the belief of Republicans and most Independents, is that the military is not a "works program". Troops are there to fight wars, not to be pampered or to be used and portrayed by the Democrats as victims.

Despite the best efforts of our esteemed Democratic leadership, the American public believes that yes, we can win the war in Iraq:

A majority of Americans - 54% - believe the United States has not lost the war in Iraq, but there is dramatic disagreement on the question between Democrats and Republicans, a new UPI/Zogby Interactive poll shows. While two in three Democrats (66%) said the war effort has already failed, just 9% of Republicans say the same.

The poll comes ahead of a September report to Congress by David Petraeus, commander of the multi-national force in Iraq, on the progress of the so-called surge in quelling attacks by insurgents and creating an atmosphere where the new Iraqi government can develop.

The good news for Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi is that 86% of the people in their own party believe the surge is not working so their constant refrain of retreat and loss is working on the party which is heavily invested in our losing. At least someone in the country is actually paying attention to them.

The media has been beating the drum of losing so incessantly that it seems people just stopped paying attention to them. Perhaps they're reading alternate coverage that paints a more realistic picture of the actual situation, one in which we are in fact making progress but still have a ways to go.

Once the August recess is over, Congress has a slew of issues on the agenda. The most-important is undoubtedly General Petraeus' report on the success of the "surge".

This is an extremely touchy issue for the Democrat-led House and Senate as the liberal base is getting antsy for them to retreat and come home, the after effects be damned. Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid know full-well that we can't cut and run and their promises last November of doing so are coming back to haunt them. The Dems now have the added burden of trying to withdrawal while every news source is saying we are indeed making serious progress and they have had to shift their talking point from military failure to Iraqi government failure. That's not as easy a sell to the American public who, regardless of what polls say, want us to win.

Update (8/22/07 1425): The inter-party war begins as the nutroots take aim at those who they think betrayed the party. The fact that the only reason they won the majority was because of the Blue Dogs must escape them. Idiocy reins on the left so I say fight on amongst yourselves, donks!

Enter FreedomsWatch.org, an organization that has just spent $15-million on advertising to press the Democrats into continuing to support the war and our efforts in the War on Terror. Their efforts are coming at a crucial juncture of the WOT and could swing things come November 2008. They've released four new ads that are quite effective, this being one of them:

You can see the rest of them back-to-back here.

Here's the Washington Post's take on Freedoms Watch:

And now the Democrats, along with wavering Republicans, will face an advertising blitz from Bush supporters determined to remain on offense. A new pressure group, Freedom's Watch, will unveil a month-long, $15 million television, radio and grass-roots campaign today designed to shore up support for Bush's policies before the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, lays out a White House assessment of the war's progress. The first installment of Petraeus's testimony is scheduled to be delivered before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees on the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a fact both the administration and congressional Democrats say is simply a scheduling coincidence.

The successes in Iraq have been amazing and the press has nearly ceased to report from the region any bad news with the exception of the Democrat talking points about the ineffectiveness of al-Maliki's government. A crucial issue, but if the surge wasn't working, it wouldn't even be a point of contention. On a separate point, how did the Democrats allow the testimony of General Petraeus to occur on 9/11? It's a day that reminds everyone of terrorist attacks that killed 3,000 people on our soil and can only psychologically work against the anti-war faction.

Get ready for a rough beginning to the next session of Congress. If Pelosi and Reid cave anymore on this issue, the nutroots left will be merciless in their attacks and will take it out on the Presidential candidates as well as Congressional leadership. Bush is pushing hard for a continuation of the War on Terror and the Democrats may be stuck in a position that has no easy extraction.

Yesterday, John Fund had an interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Northern Exposure - The GOP's Alaska delegation could become the new poster boys for corruption, that should serve as a wake-up call to gutless and clueless Republicans in Congress.

Fund points out a few inconvenient truths about the recently passed and signed Ethics "Reform" Bill. In January, the Senate unanimously adopted "sunshine" provisions for all bills, a device intended to publicly show the public the who, what, and where's of earmark spending. It was supposed to be codified in the reform bill. It wasn't. In addition, according to Fund:

The bill the rest voted for had been gutted: Disclosing an earmark is now voluntary (not mandatory), protecting an earmark requires only 41 votes (instead of 67), and the power to determine whether a spending provision inserted by a senator is officially considered an earmark will now be up to . . . Mr. Reid.

Last winter, the Democrats quickly adopted the mantra that the election of 2006 was all about getting out of Iraq. While that was probably true for the far left, the rest of those concerned about Iraq were more concerned about changing the failed tactics in Iraq towards ones that would give us a chance for victory. Even then, if you take both coalitions together (the stop fighting left and the start fighting middle and right), Iraq concerns were a distant second to the main concern of voters in 2006 -- corruption, specifically Republican corruption.

Remember when the current Congress took office amid the hype of "transparency" and "ethics"? Well, it took them less than one whole summer to throw that by the wayside.

It started with the esteemed Rep. David Obey and his little sleight of hand maneuvers and grew to full on hostility of anyone who would question the earmarks of a great man like Rep. Murtha. The Democratic Congress began their retreat from reform almost immediately, yet the media didn't care and the representatives and senators knew it.

The incoming Congress pushed a bill for transparency that got unanimous support and gave them a shot in the arm, albeit a short-lived one. N.Z. Bear shows what was voted on and what's in the new version. It ain't pretty:

Based on what we're hearing from those who would know, key changes include:

• The old version (passed by the Senate) required conference / committee reports to list all earmarks and required the chairman of the relevant committee to distribute the earmark list. But the new version of the bill allows the Majority Leader (as opposed to the Senate parliamentarian, a more objective judge) to determine whether or not a conference report complies with the disclosure requirements.
• The new version removes the requirement for earmark lists posted online to be in searchable format.
• The new version removes the provision that prevented any bill from being considered at all prior to the disclosure of earmarks; now the text only prohibits a formal motion to proceed, which leaves open a procedural loophole that would allow bills to slip through without disclosure.
• The old version prohibited earmarks which benefit a Member, their staff, or their family/their staff's family. The new version waters that down and only prohibits earmarks that would "only" affect those parties --- which means so long as you can make a case that your shiny new project affects at least one person other than you positively, you're all set.

Here's a handy chart that lays it out in technicolor.

Harry Reid surely has changed the way Congress does business, hasn't he? It is now more difficult to track earmarks than it was in January.

End note: This is a truly bi-partisan effort, perhaps we won't have the "Pork King" Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) to kick around after too long. Good riddance senator and take all of the other corrupt bastards with you.

Update (7/31/07 1541): The bill passed and shocka! Murtha voted against it. No silly, not because he's had a sudden outbreak of ethics, he knows the bill will shed a sliver of light on his shady ways. Old John thought he perfected his schtick since his unindicted co-conspirator ABSCAM days.