The 2008 Defense Budget is an integral part of the wars we are now fighting, in addition to being essential for preparing for conflicts to come. It's the base funding for the entire Defense Department - our military. This bill in particular takes care of some issues that have been in the news recently - increased military pay, increased benefits and care for soldiers that have been wounded fighting our wars, and more armored vehicles - to name just a few. These are all things that the Democrats have been screaming about for months. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid once promised that the bill would go through clean, with no unrelated extraneous amendments added to muddy it up.

So why are the Democrats now jeopardizing the passage of the bill by adding, at the last minute, a Ted Kennedy authored homosexual hate crimes amendment, having nothing to do with the Defense Department, to the spending measure? The Army Times reminds us that the House passed the 2008 Defense Budget in May. Since then, the Senate has spent alot of time attempting to attach anti-Iraq War amendments to their version of the bill, but each one failed. So they throw one last minute unrelated liberal social agenda amendment onto the bill, in effect challenging Bush to veto the entire measure. It's almost as if the Dems did this out of spite.

The Kennedy amendment is a transparent attempt to get back into the good graces of the Left after the Democrats failed to do what they had promised (actually guaranteed) their base that they would do - get the US out of Iraq. The amendment passed, gaining 60 votes, but that's not enough to override a Presidential veto. Let's say the 2008 Defense Budget passes, and gets to conference committee with the House. There's a good chance that this amendment won't be in the final version sent to the President. But let's say it survives.

67-29 which is a veto sustaining majority in the Senate. President Bush has already declared an intention to veto, with some extremely masterful language:

Today, the Senate passed a State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) reauthorization bill that fails to focus on poor children, and instead creates a new entitlement program for higher income households. In fact, the bill specifically eliminates the requirement that states enroll 95% of children in households under 200% of the federal poverty level.

The President will veto this bill because it directs scarce funding to higher incomes at the expense of poor families.

We encourage Congress to send the President a continuing resolution extending SCHIP so coverage for the children who rely on the program will not be threatened. We should take this time to arrive at a more rational, bipartisan SCHIP reauthorization bill that focuses on children in poor families who don't currently have insurance, rather than raising taxes to cover people who already have private insurance.

When the bill passed the House, it did not do so with enough votes to sustain a veto in that body. I would expect that the Democrats would want to put it up for another vote, just to increase the pressure "for the children." This issue is just too easy to demagogue, they won't give up that opportunity.

On the merits of the bill, I'm with the president completely. If the politicians want to do something to help working class families around health care, how about full tax credits for health care? How about coming up with a comprehensive solution to the portability problem? In my opinion this is all about fixing a problem that largely does not exist for the opportunity to beat your political opponent about the head and neck.

Pass SCHIP as it was last year and move on to a real issue.

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.

Simply put, she's good at what she does. Everyone seems to know this by now, including President Bush. Witness her handling of the Washington talk-show circuit this Sunday. She made a two-hour blitz, appearing on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and FOX, one right after the other. As the Politico reports, it was all no sweat for the soon-to-be Democratic nominee:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton beamed her way through a barrage of questions from five political talk show hosts Sunday morning, appearances that offered some details of her plans on health care and the war in Iraq, but left her basically unscathed politically after the toughest grilling Washington has to offer.

Call her the Timex of American politics. Takes a licking and keeps on ticking. In fact, what the Sunday media barrage demonstrated was just how self-assured and in control Hillary is at this point in the race. Today she also picked up the endorsement of Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, a moderate, red-state Democrat who would make an interesting choice for V.P. And if there was one message from Sunday's walk in the park, it was that Hillary will position herself as a centrist come the general election, whatever Chris Wallace would have you believe. Witness, for instance, the evolution of her health care plan:

The only real piece of news in the interviews came on ABC, where Clinton said for the first time that her health plan will not mandate or include coverage for illegal immigrants, who already receive emergency coverage under federal programs for children and the poor. It was yet another sign that her plan is designed, most of all, for passage, aimed as it is to assuage the concerns of those who opposed her 1993 effort most fiercely: small businesses, and people who are satisfied with their current health care.

No, Hillary is not my first choice in this race, but the fact is she has run an expert campaign. A big upset in Iowa may yet reverse her fortunes, but as of now, Mrs. Clinton looks awfully hard to beat.

Drudge is reporting that President Bush has gone on the record stating that he believes Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic presidential nomination, but she will lose the general election to a Republican challenger. This comes from an excerpt in the forthcoming book The Evangelical President by Bill Sammon, in which Bush states: "She's got a national presence and this is becoming a national primary...And therefore the person with the national presence, who has got the ability to raise enough money to sustain an effort in a multiplicity of sites, has got a good chance to be nominated."

While it seems a certain that Clinton will win the nomination, the certainty that she would lose is, well, not so certain at this stage of the game. The comments by Bush that a Republican will win the White House are not necessarily echoed by those close to the president. Former adviser Karl Rove feels the race will be too close to call and this sentiment is basically repeated on the record by Vice President Dick Cheney in the following comment: "[The election] could go either way."

Despite the best efforts of the Bush administration, assorted pundits bloggers and the traditional media (including the NY Times and Washington Post), Americans have had it with this war and think the Dems in Congress have not done enough to end the war. According to a new Pew Research Center poll:

Check out the independent numbers. They are not moving President Bush's way. The only ones who feel good about the song and dance in Washington recently were Republicans (their numbers feeling the war was getting better went up a little).

President Bush and General Petraeus convinced no one else. The American people are speaking but are the leaders really listening. What a sad state that not even a few Republicans would support a Dem troop rotation that would give them as much time at home as in Iraq. It's not enough the war goes on, the elected Republicans are fine with the suffering on top of it.

Enough is enough.

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?

Rapper Kanye West famously declared it during the telethon to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

An article in today's Washington Post asks whether the same might be said about the current Republican field for president. This comes as a result of their refusal to participate in a debate moderated by Tavis Smiley at Morgan State University that is to be aired on PBS. It's the second such snub in a month. The same candidates (save John McCain) also took a pass on appearing at a debate on Spanish-language channel Univision.

Well, more than a few people inside the party are not happy. Here's former candidate Jack Kemp, who enjoyed huge support in the African American community:

"We sound like we don't want immigration; we sound like we don't want black people to vote for us. What are we going to do--meet in a country club in the suburbs one day? If we're going to be competitive with people of color, we've got to ask them for their vote."

Newt Gingrich has dabbled in Spanish, and doesn't like what he's seeing, either:

"For Republicans to consistently refuse to engage in front of an African American or Latino audience is an enormous error. I hope they will reverse their decision and change their schedules. I see no excuse--this thing has been planned for months, these candidates have known about it for months. It's just fundamentally wrong. Any of them who give you that scheduling-conflict answer is disingenuous. That's baloney."

Ouch. President Bush took 40% of the Hispanic vote in 2004. Anybody want to lay odds on the percentage a Republican will garner from African Americans or Latinos this time around?

While news regarding Israel's successful air raid in Syria remains somewhat murky (it is widely believed that the bombing served the purpose of destroying nuclear material that had been acquired by North Korea), it has recently come to light that on July 23, 15 Syrians and several dozen Iranians were killed in a explosion involving a disastrous chemical weapons experiment.

According to The Jerusalem Post, the accident occurred when a warhead containing chemical weapons materials was being mounted on a SCUD missile. This, of course, raises a number of questions regarding the recent allegations of North Korea allegedly supplying Syria with nuclear material. If the allegations are true, was Syria in the process of acquiring a nuclear warhead or material that could be used to construct a "dirty bomb" of radio active material?

This disaster shows a clear collaboration between Iran and Syria regarding a weapons of mass destruction program that, in light of Iran's current nuclear program, the situation in the Middle East to escalating even further. It is no secret that Dick Cheney has been pushing President Bush for military action in Iran and incidents like this do not exactly calm anyone's nerves about Iran and Syria's threat to U.S. troops or allies.

Karma will get you. When you violate the principles of a political ideology to the degree that the current Republican leadership has and to the degree that it has, it is only a matter of time that the voters will simply start abandoning the party.

According to the Politico, the polling organization Public Opinion Strategies has noticed a huge trend of voters no longer identifying/affiliating with the Republican Party. While the article mentions that the most significant drops in affiliation would be Independents who formerly favored conservative ideals, it also ignores the fact that many former registered Republicans are moving more towards the Independent ticket disenfranchised with the party. While these voters won't cast a pro-Democrat vote, they will simply opt not to vote at all preferring to stay at home in protest with the hopes that in the long run letting the current Republican leadership lose office and somewhere down the road be replaced by a legitimate conservative.

Yes, the Iraq war is a major part of the Republicans losing popularity, but there is more to it.

One of the huge fallacies about political groups in the United States is that all Republicans are conservative and all Democrats are liberals. This is not really an accurate sentiment as there are conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans and moderates in both parties. (And, yes, there are also fringe element radical and reactionary groups within both parties as well.)

What is utterly perplexing about the Republican Party is that it has moved more and more towards a hybrid of the classical Rockefeller Republican (often derided as country club Republicans) and emerging Neo-Conservatives (There are variants to the origin of what a neo-con is, but it is usually a combination of former conservative democrats who drifted to the Republican wing and globalists) yet the base of the Republican Party is primarily classical Reagan and Goldwater conservatives and the base isn't happy with this new crop of Republicans who are heavy on government spending, open borders, globalization, et al. In June, rage and anger from the base over President Bush's pro-amnesty stance led to a revolution of sorts which saw a massive drop in grass roots donations combined and this has now manifested to a multitude of the conservative base moving towards independent status.

This should come as no surprise. Why should conservatives affiliate themselves with a party that is not conservative?

Yes, that's about the size of it. 2006 was actually supposed to be a good cycle for the GOP. 2008 favored the Democrats already, as the Republicans will be defending more seats. But the situation just keeps getting worse as Dick Morris details here:

If the Republicans lose Virginia, Nebraska, Colorado, New Hampshire, Maine, Oregon and Minnesota - and pick up no new seats - the Democrats will have 57 votes in the Senate (counting Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, who votes with them). It's enough to let a new Democratic president have her way legislatively without too much trouble.

I can see the GOP saving Nebraska, Maine, and New Hampshire and picking off Lousiana, but that's about the best they can hope for. Swinging the other way 60 is probably hopeless, but the Democrats could get close.

One implication is that the current GOP senators in these states will not put their necks on the line for George W. Bush whether in Iraq or on any other issue. In fact, its amazing that President Bush is doing as well as he is with the Senate so far!

The big implication is that Republican primary voters need a win for the presidency and they will be willing to cut a deal with a certain pro-choice, anti-gun, thrice divorced former mayor if he can guarantee that he will keep the White House out of the hands of Hillary Clinton. On the Republican side, all the money will flow into the presidential and House contests, not the Senate.

I don't know what to think. On the one hand, Bush AG appointee Michael Mukasey seems to be a stand up guy with a great resume and a solid career in civil service. On the other hand, Charles Schumer likes him. Phil reported earlier that there isn't likely to be much resistance to Mukasey, but conservatives still aren't sure whether they like this or not. On the anti- side we have Calabresi at Time:

But in dropping Olson and going with Mukasey, Bush has opened himself up to attack from the right. Conservatives are worried about Mukasey's 1994 denial of asylum for a Chinese man who said his wife had been forced to have an abortion under that country's one-child law, which they say indicates he's weak on pro-life issues. And though he has consistently ruled with the Administration on a number of important and high-profile terrorism cases, Mukasey broke with them in an early, crucial ruling, saying that American citizen Jose Padilla had a right to a lawyer, no matter what his status in the war on terror. Mukasey is also very close to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whom social conservatives distrust.

On the pro- side we have Peter Wehrner at the Corner:

The Hill is reporting that one of the leaders of the anti-war movement in the House, Democrat Rep. Jack Murtha, is claiming that Republicans will join him against the Iraq war -- next year.

House Appropriations Defense subcommittee Chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) said Monday that he expects that Republican lawmakers will begin abandoning President Bush's Iraq policy after the GOP picks a presidential candidate next year. "As soon as the primaries are over, you'll see Republicans start jumping ship," Murtha said in remarks at the National Press Club.

Murtha also is predicting that Democrats will pick up 40 to 50 seats in the House next year. To put his predictions in context, might I remind readers that Murtha, one year ago, was predicting that by this time (September '07) we would have surrendered in Iraq and our troops would be "redeploying" to areas outside of Iraq where we could provide "quick response" strikes on terrorists -- from bases as close as Okinawa, Japan, 4899 miles away.

I believe that Murtha's predictions this year are also in error. Iraq will be in play next year, but will be more of a problem in the general electorate for Democrats than Republicans. And with Congressional approval lower with a Democratic Congress than it ever was with a Republican one, I don't think you'll be seeing any Democrat landslide in '08. What are the Dems going to do, run against themselves? (Oh wait, there's MoveOn.org...)

If (a big if) Republicans clean up their act and pledge fiscal conservatism under new leadership, I think that the Senate will remain in the Democrats' control, but the House might switch again. If Iraq is going particularly well, however, that might change - Republicans could win the Senate as well. All bets are off if the Republicans continue to act like idiots. I think that the House Republicans have, for the most part, learned their lessons. The Republicans in the Senate, as of yet, have not learned theirs (as evidenced by Larry Craig and Ted Stevens), and might not until after 2008.

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has some harsh words for the Republican party in his new autobiography, words that I hope the Republicans listen to. Although I haven't read the book yet, apparently the former Ayn Rand disciple states quite clearly that the Republicans deserved to lose the majority in Congress in 2006 because it had abandoned its fiscal conservative roots. No argument here -- that's my position as well. But another tale from the book has garnered attention over the past few days -- Greenspan's claim that the Iraq war was, in fact, all over oil.

The media reports of Greenspan's statements make it sound as if behind closed doors, oil was the reason for the Iraq War, instead of one of many. In fact, as the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq states, there were many reasons for the Iraq War, not just WMDs. Primary among them was that "Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region." Take away Middle East oil and the world's economy grinds to a halt. Like it or not, unless nuclear powered cars are just a few years away, maintaining safe and affordable oil supplies from the Middle East is in our country's national security interest -- and will be, for decades to come.

Today there's an article in the Washington Post, Greenspan: Ouster Of Hussein Crucial For Oil Security, which seeks to clarifies the claims about oil that Greenspan made in his book. He explains his statement by saying that oil, in fact, wasn't the reason behind the war. Ex-Chairman Greenspan then goes on to say that if it was a reason for the war, it was because it was he who lobbied the administration on it:

Greenspan, who was the country's top voice on monetary policy at the time Bush decided to go to war in Iraq, has refrained from extensive public comment on it until now, but he made the striking comment in a new memoir out today that "the Iraq War is largely about oil." In the interview, he clarified that sentence in his 531-page book, saying that while securing global oil supplies was "not the administration's motive," he had presented the White House with the case for why removing Hussein was important for the global economy. "I was not saying that that's the administration's motive," Greenspan said in an interview Saturday, "I'm just saying that if somebody asked me, 'Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?' I would say it was essential."

Pretty interesting stuff. I wonder how Andrea Mitchell feels about this?