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.

In January, we were told that the new Democrat-led Congress was going to save the country, change the world and make every bald guy grow hair. Instead, we have a Congress that continually gets beat by a lame-duck president and hasn't passed even one requisite spending bill:

With none of the 12 fiscal 2008 appropriations bills enacted, both the House and Senate will take up continuing resolutions to extend federal government funding at current levels.

But wait, they're still working on really important legislation. Way more important than passing bills that will keep our country moving:

Two other measures are expected to see House floor action next week. One bill (HR 2693) would protect workers against an artificial-butter flavoring chemical called diacetyl, a chemical that is used in the production of microwave popcorn.

Yeah, that Nancy Pelosi has taken that mandate handed to her and really run with it, hasn't she. I sense that the country is so much better because of Democratic leadership. Or not.

Speaker Pelosi and her compadre Steny Hoyer have spent so much time on stupid investigations and meaningless resolutions condemning everything and everyone connected to the war in Iraq that they've failed to do what they were actually put in office to do. It may just be the shortest leadership run in congressional history if this keeps up.

Remember George W. Bush's Axis of Evil speech? Remember how the libs all wrung their hands because the Texas Redneck Idiot had the audacity to call out our enemies a la Ronald Reagan and his Evil Empire speech.

Well guess what? President Bush was exactly right when he lumped Iraq, Iran and North Korea in the same sentence...he only left out Syria:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 - The Sept. 6 attack by Israeli warplanes inside Syria struck what Israeli intelligence believes was a nuclear-related facility that North Korea was helping to equip, according to current and former American and Israeli officials.

Details about the Israeli assessment emerged as China abruptly canceled planned diplomatic talks in Beijing that were to set a schedule to disband nuclear facilities in North Korea. The Bush administration has declined to comment on the Israeli raid, but American officials were expected to confront the North Koreans about their suspected nuclear support for Syria during those talks.

But wait, isn't this the same Syria that Rep. Dennis Kucinich just visited and disrespected the president? Is that country led by Boy Assad, the second hand despot that Speaker Nancy Pelosi acted like she could do business with? The same Pelosi that said of Assad "We were very pleased with the assurances we received from the president that he was ready to resume the peace process. He's ready to engage in negotiations for peace with Israel..." The Israelis are in a desperate position should Assad get nukes and they know it so they took action, apparently with U.S. knowledge.

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?

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...

The Iraq war is going nowhere fast. To know this, all you have to do is listen to the people selling it, especially General Patraeus and George W. Bush. To them, our success can best be measured by the promise of cutting 30,000 troops by next summer, even though the military long ago told us that there was no way it could sustain the current level of soldiers any longer. Indeed, you go to war with the army you have. Success then, is returning to the way the war was previously prosecuted. 130,000 troops were woefully inadequate from 2003-2007, so let's try it again. That makes absolutely no sense. Does Bush think the country so stupid that it doesn't remember that he was forced to implement the surge in response to the chaos that resulted from his own failed policies? Consider the following exchange between Bush and Nancy Pelosi:

When top Democratic leaders visited him at the White House this week, President Bush told them he wanted to "find common ground" on Iraq. But when the president said he planned to "start doing some redeployment ," the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, cut him off.

"No you're not, Mr. President," Ms. Pelosi interjected. "You're just going back to the presurge level."

Tonight, the president will do his best to try and convince a television audience that this stale bread is "New and Improved!" but what's new about it, exactly? That we've now armed Sunni militias who have decided it's in their self-interest to rat out Al-Qaida? They still despise the Shia, and now they're better armed. Sounds promising.

If the surge has worked, as Bush and Patraeus insist, wouldn't it be more logical to keep surging? Instead, to build on whatever success we've seen in Anbar, we'll be removing troops. They aren't even following their own strained logic at this point. The real problem, of course, is that the surge hasn't done what we'd hoped. While it may have quelled pockets of violence, its larger objectives remain dramatically void. Today, in fact, we learned that the Iraqi Parliament's attempt at an oil-revenue deal has collapsed.

Well, Barack Obama, among others, has heard and seen enough. On the campaign trail yesterday, he detailed what he would and would not do if he were in charge:

Senator Barack Obama yesterday presented his most extensive plan yet for winding down the war in Iraq, proposing to withdraw all combat brigades by the end of the next year while leaving behind an unspecified smaller force to strike at terrorists, train Iraqi soldiers and protect American interests....

"What's at stake is bigger than this war: it's our global leadership," Mr. Obama said. "Now is a time to be bold. We must not stay the course or take the conventional path because the other course is unknown."

You can read the full speech here. While there are no easy choices in Iraq, this difficult one is certainly better than Mr. Bush's "Back to the Future" plan.

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.

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.

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.

So it's true: Gonzales is out, and my theory about a trial balloon is a bust as well. Trial balloons usually take a little longer. Ultimately Gonzales is not out because he fired some U.S. attorneys, or anything else he did or did not do in his official capacity. He's out because he got caught lying to senators. You don't do that and live to tell about it. The practical effect is that you have many very angry senators, and some of them are just on your side.

Nancy Pelosi says this about the potential new AG:

The nominee must also pledge to cooperate with ongoing congressional oversight into the conduct of the White House in the politicization of federal law enforcement. Hearings on the nominee will provide Congress with another opportunity to examine the new, flawed FISA law and will aid in our efforts to improve it.

So the president's nominee must promise to cooperate with Democrats on their agenda. I think we have some insight here as to why Bush has resisted a new confirmation battle for so long. It should be interesting, but wait!

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.

The Republicans could do worse than make Rep. Jack Murtha the poster boy of what they're trying to defeat in 2008. Over the past few days, Bob Novak has used his sources on Capitol Hill to give us a look at who House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls on when things get a bit touchy with the ethics and earmarks subject on the House floor -- good old Jack Murtha. He's apparently now referred to openly by his nickname: "King Corruption":

Republicans returning to the House floor on Friday morning Aug. 3 after their walkout the night before were surprised to find as presiding officer the Democrat they call "King Corruption": Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, master of earmarks and backroom deals.

...Murtha's performance as non-partisan presiding officer ran true to form. On a voice vote, Murtha ruled for Democrats when obviously more Republicans were on the House floor. He subsequently ordered a roll call vote, though members rising in support clearly fell short of the 44 required. After that ruling was challenged, Murtha declared: "The chair's decision is not subject to question."

Nice guy. And one ripe for defeat. Now we fast forward to this morning's Novak column in the Washington Post, House of Corruption?, for an update on the fight against secret earmarks attached to unrelated appropriations bills in the House. Incidentally, this is an embarrassment for both parties, not just Democrats.

After speculating whether this was 1968 all over again for the Democrats, I think we now have exhibit A. Cindy Sheehan has formally announced as an independent gunning for Nancy Pelosi's seat.

From AP:

Citing her son as inspiration, a tearful Cindy Sheehan announced her candidacy Thursday for the U.S. House of Representatives.

...Last month, she announced her intention to run against Pelosi if the speaker didn't move to impeach Bush by July 23. On Thursday, she said Pelosi had "protected the status quo" of the corporate elite and had lost touch with people in her district, most of whom, she said, want American troops out of Iraq.

...Sheehan admitted she has no funds for a campaign, but planned to immediately get started raising money. Without giving further specifics, Sheehan said she wouldn't accept money from corporations and would run on a platform of universal health care. Sheehan said she also wants to make college affordable and improve ethics in the legislative and executive branches.

So maybe now the Democrats will actually believe the conservatives and others who suggested that Cindy Sheehan is an unhinged woman trading on the goodwill of her dead son. Just who was it that fed the media reputation, who booked her on all those talk shows? Who funded her camp in Crawford? Talk about pigeons coming home to roost.

I'm a certifiable baseball junkie. I play, coach and watch every chance I get. I coach indoors when it's snowing and frigid in February even.

That said, this Barry Bonds issue has me irate. Hank Aaron's home run record of 755 is arguably the single most coveted record in any sport. Think about that number and consider that Willie Mays only came within 90 of it. To see Bonds break it last night made me sick. No, not because he' plays for the hated Giants or the fact that he's black that has been thrown around without thought, it is pure and simply the fact that Bonds cheated.

Granted, everything is allegation at this point but when a guys foot size increases 2 1/2 sizes and his hat size goes from 7 1/8 to 7 3/4, you have to figure there's something to these allegations. The fact that he has been widely implicated in the BALCO scandal just ices it for me. The fact that Hank Aaron was not on hand says all you need to know about how he feels getting beaten by a man who is enhanced by chemicals.