Lying Is Fundamental

Since 2003, Republicans accused anyone that dared to vote against the yearly war supplemental funding bills cranked out by Bush of hating the troops, caving to terrorism, and being borderline traitors to the Warren Terrah. "You're playing politics with the troops!" was the cry whenever Democrats refused to give a blank check to Bush. In the end, they always caved...to the tune of trillions of dollars over six years.

Put a Democrat in charge of the White House however, and suddenly it's perfectly okay to vote against funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...because it happens that $5 billion for the IMF is an unconscionable expense to the guys that brought us a nearly $3 trillion war of choice.

The House initially passed a bill on May 14 by a vote of 368-60, and all but nine Republicans backed the measure. But the House version did not include the IMF funding; the Senate version did, and the conference report adopted that provision.

A spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) noted the Republican support for the version that did not include the IMF funding and accused Democrats of politicizing the issue by including non-war-funding provisions.

“It is the Democratic leadership that is playing politics with our troops by insisting on using them as leverage to pass over $100 billion in global bailout money for the IMF,” said Michael Steel, Boehner’s spokesman.

However, Republicans also have used the supplemental war bills to advance non-related priorities. In 2006, Republican senators included $4 billion for farm programs and $700 million for a railroad project on the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast.

Republicans also embraced the war supplemental in 2007 — advanced by the Democratic-controlled Congress — that included an increase in the minimum wage.

While the Obama administration has said that increasing the IMF funding is crucial to the global response to the economic crisis, Republicans said the money could end up in countries that are hostile to the United States.

Once the GOP votes against war funding, Democrats will seek to paint Republicans as flip-floppers, just as Republicans did when Democrats changed their position on a war-spending vote. The charge reached its peak in the 2004 presidential election, when Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) was forced to defend his 2003 vote against the war-spending measure after initially supporting it.

“Anytime there was a Democrat [who] raised concern on some of these supplementals, he was tarred as being anti-troop,” said a House Democratic leadership aide.

The Democratic aide charged House Republicans with “hypocrisy” for opposing a bill because of the IMF funding, which amounts to less than 5 percent of the proposed spending in the legislation.

“It seems like they’re putting the interest of the Republican Party and the ability for them to develop a campaign narrative ahead of the interest of the troops,” he said.

House Republican leaders said that most GOP House members will oppose the bill, just as they did with the Democrats’ previous big-ticket items, including the $787 billion stimulus and the $410 billion omnibus.

“As written, if this bill is going to pass — with all of its troubling provisions and funding — it will need to pass on the strength of Democrat votes, which is why Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi [D-Calif.] continues to pressure members of her own party,” said Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.).

It doesn't matter what the President is for...the GOP is against it. The Party of No must deny everything and refuse to take any responsibility for the country. this, they figure, will get Americans to magically vote for them.

Having said that, many of the same Democrats who voted against Bush's blank checks are considering voting against Obama's supplemental. If you're sticking to your guns, fine. I respect that. But to say voting against the supplemental is tantamount to treason and then to vote against the measure for purely political reasons like this is the height of hypocrisy even for these assholes.

The good news is that the supplemental may go down in flames. Another $100 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan is still $100 billion too much in light of the trillions already wasted there. I suppose there's a silver lining to this, but the GOP needs to be decimated on this vote.