Bush follows through with veto

Today, President Bush followed through with his many threats to veto any legislation with “artificial” timetables.

Twelve weeks ago, I asked the Congress to pass an emergency war spending bill that would provide our brave men and women in uniform with the funds and flexibility they need. Instead, members of the House and the Senate passed a bill that substitutes the opinions of politicians for the judgment of our military commanders. So a few minutes ago, I vetoed the bill.

He went on in his remarks to repeat the broken record he’s been spinning for three weeks, which has had no affect on anyone. He called the deadlines “rigid and artificial,” and claimed that they would be “setting a date for failure.” He went on to claim that the bill would “impose impossible conditions on our commanders in combat.” These “impossible conditions” include returning the maximum tour of duty to 12 months, from 15, and ensuring that our troops have proper training before being deployed. Sounds pretty impossible to me.

But by far my favorite is this:

In the months since our military has been implementing this plan, we’ve begun to see some important results.

For example, Iraqi and coalition forces have closed down an al Qaeda car-bomb network, they’ve captured a Shi’a militia leader implicated in the kidnapping and killing of American soldiers, they’ve broken up a death squad that had terrorized hundreds of residents in a Baghdad neighborhood.

Hmmm. It’s going that good over there, huh? So good, that the best claims of progress you can give in your national address is vague accomplishment 1, 2, and 3. My God, just look at the articles: an, a, a. He might as well just said, “Uhhhhh, yeah, well we caught some guy who was killing some people, so there.”

The President ended his address with this statement. “Thank you for listening.” I’m sorry, Mr. President, I don’t think anyone was.

[via DailyKos]