Liberals:

President Barack Obama concerning border safety: “Even though we’ve answered these concerns [that Republicans have raised about border security], I’ve got to say i suspect there’s still some who are trying to move the goal posts on us one more time. You know, they said ‘we needed to triple the border patrol.’ Well, now they’re going to say we need to quadruple the border patrol, or they’ll want a higher fence. Maybe they’ll need a moat. Maybe they’ll want alligators in the moat. They’ll never be satisfied.”

Christian Dorsey: “There is nothing that puts more money into the economy than unemployment benefits.” [Quoted from memory]

Kirsten Powers: “I don’t think the AP is a partisan organization.” [Quoted from memory]

Southern CA Democrat ad: “We minorities should stick together.”

Chris Matthews on Newt Gingrich: “I cannot believe there are young Republicans idealists out there, young people with hope who want our country to be good and have good politics to want to resurrect this element of Freddy Krueger, Nightmare on Elm Street politics.”

Chris Matthews: “Why don’t we have Cheney try that water board thingamajig of his on Karl Rove and Scooter to find our really who said what in that CIA leak case?”

Substitute judge in Milwaukee county Russell Stamper (from his facebook posting): “I was saddened.  You murdered a man.  For me, if the choice is condemnation of the CIA, DEA, FBI and IRS or Osama bin Laden, it’s an easy call.  I remain unconvinced that bin Laden committed the 911 attack, whereas we know the lettered government organizations are thieves, assassins, dope peddlers, government destabilizers, did I say assassins?, arms purveyors and various and sundry other planetary criminals.”

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said if Congress fails to lift the debt ceiling and the U.S. defaults on its obligations “this abrupt contraction would likely push us into a double dip recession…A default would inflict catastrophic far-reaching damage on our nation’s economy, significantly reducing growth and increasing unemployment.  Even a short-term default could cause irrevocable damage to the economy.”

Bill Maher, full-time comedian and part-time climate expert, speaks about the tornadoes throughout the Midwest and south: “This is global warming.  This is global warming – there’s more moisture – it’s what scientist always said. There’s more moisture in the atmosphere. It’s going to cause these giant disasters.”

Randi Rhodes: “Look, the conservatives, if Shakespeare were alive, and he went to the White House to get, you know, some sort of a reading, they would be outraged about him — talking about killing his brother, and the father had to go, and a mother he slept with — They’d be out of their fricking minds with this. They don’t understand culture! Or literature!”

Former member of the US House of Representatives Cynthia Anne McKinney: “As an American, I am upset with the policies of my country, but the measures adopted by the first Afro-American president of the United States has ashamed us all.  If there is no truth, there won’t be any justice, and today the US policies are rooted in lies, injustice and war.”  Give her points for consistency.

President Obama on the multiple attacks against Christians in Egypt: “…”

________________________________________________________

Nina Totenberg, NPR: The trouble is there have to be some tax increases as well as spending cuts. You can’t do this over the long haul without some tax increases.

Mark Shields, PBS: Amen.

________________________________________________

Chuck Schumer giving Obama a lot of love: “Finally it should not be forgotten the job that President Obama did. His steely courage – his quiet courage was incredible.  I want to say something about this president, Mr. President. He’s not a chest-thumper. He’s not somebody who involves in a lot of rhetorical flourishes, he is serious, he is focused, he is factually driven, but let no one mistake the fact that he is fact-driven and often quietly contemplative for a lack of steel or a lack of courage or a lack of strength.”

Liberals from the past:

Columnist David Neiwart: “One of the reasons Fox News has become such a serious problem is that journalists as a profession have utterly failed in their traditional role of self-policing their colleagues. Journalists need to be speaking out about the truth that Anita Dunn pointed out in October: That Fox has ceased offering even a resemblance of a news organization and has become a propaganda channel 24/7.  Fox has largely been able to get away with it because its money and influence are so sizable that it has silenced with profession with a combination of threats and bribes: If you call them out, you get blackballed. On the other hand, if you play along, you get invited on their shows and get a fat contributor’s paycheck.  Among the most disturbing examples of this have been NPR’s Mara Liasson and Juan Williams, who have become such regulars on Fox that their identities are increasingly that of a typical Fox commentator. And in the process, they’ve deeply marred NPR’s hitherto-sterling reputation as a reliable source of accurate and unbiased news.”
Liberals being civil:

Email from a teacher at East Allen County Schools in Indiana, concerning school choice: “Why do you distribute this propaganda? Do you have a conscience? Do you really believe any of this? I am not a union member but feel that [Governor] Mitch [Daniel]‘s agenda is killing Indiana. The education agenda is a holocaust against our children. Please understand I am speaking as a grandson of a Holocaust survivor. This is truly as bad or worse than what was done to the Jewish people only it is happening to innocent young people. It is frightening to me.”  Emphasis mine.

Liberals making sense:

Mara Liaison: “Medicare is off the table in those short-term negotiations. So are taxes, any kind of big tax reform.  I think if you’re a Republican, and you believe that you are going to get the Senate in 2012, which is a widely-held assumption in this town on both sides of the aisle, why should you compromise on taxes before you have a much stronger hand after the next election? And why would you allow Medicare, which is the one thing that might stop you from getting that majority in 2012, to be part of the discussion?”

Ted Koppel on the notion of democracies popping up all over the Middle east: “Democracy. Let’s dump it; toss it on the scrap heap of history. The concept remains worthy, but the word is rapidly being exhausted of all residual value.”

Crosstalk:

David Gregory: First of all, you gave a speech in Georgia with language a lot of people think could be coded racially-tinged language, calling the president, the first black president, a food stamp president.

Newt Gingrich: Oh, come on, David.

Gregory: What did you mean? What was the point?

Gingrich: That’s, that’s bizarre. That–this kind of automatic reference to racism, this is the president of the United States. The president of the United States has to be held accountable. Now, the idea that–and what I said is factually true. Forty-seven million Americans are on food stamps. One out of every six Americans is on food stamps. And to hide behind the charge of racism? I have–I have never said anything about President Obama which is racist.

____________________________________________________
John D. Rockefeller IV, great grandson of oil tycoon, berates oil company CEO’s in Senate hearings: “I get the feeling that it’s almost like you’re — the five of you are like — Saudi Arabia.  That you’re caught up in your profits, you’re highly defensive…[you are] deeply and profoundly committed to sharing nothing.”

John Watson, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Chevron Corporation, responded with: “As we’ve described, we don’t receive subsidies, Senator, what we do require is a reasonable return on our invested capital. And I would tell you that I don’t think the American people want shared sacrifice. I think they want shared prosperity.”

___________________________________________________
Rockefeller: “What about the fact that, in the case of ExxonMobil, that your effective federal tax rate is substantially 3 percent lower than what the average individual federal tax rate is? Does that mean anything to you?”

Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon-Mobil: “My effective United States income tax rate on my United States income from 2005 to 2010 was 32 percent. Now, if you look at any individual year, it could be as low as a single digit. It can be as high as 38 to 39 percent, because we don’t settle our taxes in — for that year in that year. We have tax filings that are open for multiple years, as we resolve issues with the IRS, they are recognized in the year we file. So in some years when our taxes appear low, it’s because we have recognized closing of issues with the IRS where we overpaid.”

Rockefeller: “And I understand. But still, do you understand the American — the average American’s feeling — that over between 2008 and 2010 your effective tax rate was about 20, about 17 percent, and theirs was about 20 percent?

Tillerson: “From 2005 to 2010 our effective tax rate is right at 32 percent.”

________________________________________________

David Gregory: “Did harsh interrogation help in the hunt of bin Laden?”

Tom Donilon: “I’m not- I’m not going to comment on specific intelligence except to- except to say the following, that intelligence was gathered from detainees. It was gathered from interrogation. It was gathered from one of the liaison services. It was gathered technically. It was gathered through human sources, right, over time. And it was gathered, by the way, and this is a very important point, I think for your viewers and for Americans generally to understand. This was an effort across two administrations. Indeed, many of the same professionals who worked for President Bush on this project work with us today, right. So it is not a matter of a partisanship. And indeed, one of the messages, I think, that goes out from this is this. That the United States, about its goals, has persistence and determination. That the United States does what it says it’s going to do, and very importantly last Sunday night, the world saw it has the capabilities to do so.”

Conservatives:

Newt Gingrich: “[President Obama is] the most successful food stamp president in history”

Newt: “This will be the happiest, most positive, most fun campaign of my lifetime.”

Bill Schultz (of Redeye): “Newt dot org sounds like a place where witches go shopping.”

Cal Thomas: “The media should not do its own polling—it’s a conflict of interest.” [Quoted from memory]

Dick Cheney: “I think you’ve got to give him [President Obama] a lot of credit for making the decision to have SEAL team 6 conduct the raid that got bin Laden.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates: “Frankly, a week ago Sunday, in the Situation Room, we all agreed that we would not release any operational details from the effort to take out bin Laden. That all fell apart on Monday, the next day.”

Tom Edwards, the county attorney in rural Motley County east of Lubbock, said the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives was responsible on Tuesday for sparking a fire that consumed 150 acres, adding: “You can quote me on it: That bunch has a real corner on stupid.”

President Bush to President Obama on taking out Osama: “Good call.”

Rush Limbaugh: “We are the majority in this country — Tea Party conservatism — particularly if you look at the way people live their lives. We are categorized each and every day as the fringe, but we are not. We are the mainstream.”

Rush Limbaugh: “I have never once said, ‘What do I need to do to attract women?’ I do that naturally.”

Rush: “One of the truths of life is that the Republicans are never going to be able to outbid the Democrats with freebies. It’s never going to happen. To go down that road is an absolute loser, a total waste of resources and time.”

Rush: “You don’t talk about prosperity when liberals are running the show; that’s not how they advance their game. Shared misery is what they want.”

Rush: “Instead of going to El Paso and pushing for amnesty, shouldn’t Obama be going to Mississippi and all those other flooded states? I mean, he’s got the ability to lower the sea levels. Why does he not put it to use?”

Rush: “If Obama had leveled with the American people about what he had planned, he wouldn’t have gotten 30% of the vote. No liberal would! No liberal Democrat, if they were honest about their intentions for this country, would ever get 30% of the vote.”

Conservatives not making any sense:

State Sen. Shane Cultra: “It’s the parents’ responsibility that have obese kids.  Take the tax deduction away for parents that have obese kids.”  He has since tried to walk this statement back.

Newt Gingrich appeared with Nancy Pelosi in a stupid ad about climate change.   Rather than say, “This was a stupid mistake, and I got taken in by climate change propaganda,” spokesman Rick Tyler said in an email  “Newt does not apologize for trying to persuade his ideological opponents that his conservative solutions are the best solutions.  His attempt to work with Speaker Pelosi is another testament to Gingrich’s willingness to debate his conservative solutions with liberals, in this case Pelosi. As it turned out, Pelosi . . . and Gingrich still disagree about how to best protect the environment. But Gingrich will never shy away from debating those on the left on issues like the environment, education and healthcare that they think they own.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi6n_-wB154

From Conservative Review #178 (HTML)  (PDF)

Liberals:

President Barack Obama, about Brazil’s President Dilma: “I have told her that the United States wants to be a major customer [of Brazilian oil], which can be a win-win for both our countries.”

President Obama on his gun-control record: “My administration has not curtailed the rights of gun owners, it has expanded them, including allowing people to carry their guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.”

Reporter Tina Brown: “With the world exploding as it is, I must say that Obama has the worst inbox of any president in history.”  Miss Brown has apparently forgotten about the economic conditions which greeted President Reagan on day 1; WWII and the depression during the time of FDR, a dissolving union facing Lincoln, and W facing back to back recessions and 9/11 within the first 2 years of his presidency.

Harry Reid [defending federal funding for NPR]: “They had a great piece on public radio before the race started; it was really very, very good, about why the [sled dog] race takes place.”

Nancy Pelosi: “Democrats have long fought for fiscal responsibility as a top priority of this Congress.  We won’t go into the history right now, but it’s well known.”

Nancy Pelosi: “I think this debate is on a higher ground of our values. It’s not about money. It’s about the morality of what we’re doing.”

Paul Krugman: “[T]he nation is not, in fact, broke. The federal government is having no trouble raising money, and the price of that money – the interest rate on federal borrowing – is very low by historical standards. So there’s no need to scramble to slash spending now now now; we can and should be willing to spend now if it will produce savings in the long run.”

Top security advisor John Brennan: “Closing Guantanamo Bay is important for our national security interests.  But there are many, many complex complex elements to Guantanamo Bay that truly are going to make it very difficult to move swiftly with the closing of that facility.”

A disenchanted Louis Farrakhan: “And I warn my brother [Obama] don’t you let these wicked demons move you in a direction that will absolutely ruin your future with your people in Africa and throughout the world. . . . You can’t order him to step down and get out – who the hell do you think you are? – that you can talk to a man that built a country over 42 years and ask him to step down and get out – can anybody ask you?”

Joe Biden at a virtual townhall meeting to political activists and union members: “Let’s get something straight.  The only people who have the capacity – organizational capacity and muscle – to keep, as they say, the barbarians from the gate, is organized labor. And make no mistake about it, the guys on the other team get it. They know if they cripple labor, the gate is open, man. The gate is wide open. And we know that too.”

Joe Biden, shooting from the hip again: “When a woman got raped, blame her because she was wearing a skirt too short, she looked the wrong way or she wasn’t home in time to make the dinner.  We’ve gotten by that.  But it’s amazing how these Republicans, the right wing of this party – whose philosophy threw us into this God-awful hole we’re in, gave us the tremendous deficit we’ve inherited – that they’re  now using, now attempting to use, the very economic condition they have created to blame the victim – whether it’s organized labor or ordinary middle-class working men and women. It’s bizarre. It’s bizarre.”

Rob Andrews, the ranking member of the House Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee: “Drilling for oil off the coast is a problem, not a solution.”

Muammar Ghaddafi, in a letter to the President: “To our son, his excellency, Mr Barack Hussein Obama. I have said to you before, that even if Libya and the United States of America enter into a war, god forbid, you will always remain a son. Your picture will not be changed.”

Bill Maher: “Governing this country with Republicans is like rooming with a meth addict.  Every black person scares you unless they look like Urkel, talk like Colin Powell and wear Bill Cosby sweaters”

The uncivil left:

Bill Maher: “Did you hear this – Sarah Palin finally heard what happened in Japan and she’s demanding that we invade `Tsunami.  I mean she said, `These `Tsunamians’ will not get away with this.’ Oh speaking of dumb twats, did you…”

Tweet from Mikeclark2, another from the civil left: JamesOKeefeIII someone needs to f***g find you and assassinate you, like, seriously, you get off by f***g up the truth.  I should do it.

Walker protester shouts, “Hang then all!”

Helen Thomas: “Well, there’s no understanding of the Palestinians at all. I mean, they’re living there and these people want to come and take their homes and land and water and kill their children and kill them….I want people to understand why the Palestinians are upset. They are incarcerated and living in an open prison. I say to the Israelis, “Get out of people’s homes!” It’s unacceptable to have soldiers knocking on a door at three in the morning and saying, “This is my home.” And forcing people out of homes they’ve lived in for centuries? What is this? How can anybody accept it?”

Michael Moore is unhappy about the no-fly zone being established over Libya, but his tweets on this subject seem to be directed more at Bush than at Obama: “Khadaffy must’ve threatened to kill somebody’s daddy”  “Khadaffy must’ve had WMD!”  “Khadaffy must’ve planned 9/11!” etc.

Liberals making sense:

Dayton NAACP President Derrick Forward said about lowering the test scores to allow more minority applicants to become policemen: “The NAACP does not support individuals failing a test and then having the opportunity to be gainfully employed. If you lower the score for any group of people, you’re not getting the best qualified people for the job.”  I don’t know if Forward is a liberal or not; I just assume so, since he belongs to the NAACP.

Jon Meacham regarding Obama filling out his NCAA tournament brackets: “My only point is that Bush would have gotten more barbecued for this.”

Liberals from the past:

Louis Farrakhan on Obama: “You are the instrument that God is gonna use  to bring about universal change.  And that is why Barack has captured the youth…When the messiah speaks, the youth will hear.  And the Messiah is absolutely speaking”

Bill Maher, about 6 months ago: “I mean, Brazil got off oil in the last 30 years, we certainly could have.”

Ed Scultz before the 2010 election: “I think the best way for the 99ers to get the attention of the Congress is to form an unemployed coalition and just flat-out tell the Democrats, we’re not voting in the midterm…And I’m announcing today, I’m not gonna vote in the midterm. I’m not gonna do it!”

Crosstalk:

Playboy: Do you acknowledge that some Palestinian behavior over the years, including hijacking and the use of suicide bombers, has been wrong and has added to the problem?

Helen Thomas: In an ideal world passive resistance and world disarmament would be great. Unfortunately we don’t live in that world. Of course I don’t condone any violence against anyone. But who wouldn’t fight for their country? What would any American do if their land was being taken? Remember Pearl Harbor. The Palestinian violence is to protect what little remains of Palestine. The suicide bombers act out of despair and desperation. Three generations of Palestinians have been forced out of their homes-by Israelis-and into refugee camps. And the Israelis are still bulldozing Palestinians’ homes in East Jerusalem. Remember, Menachem Begin invented terrorism as his MO-and bragged about it in his first book. That’s how Israel was created, aided and abetted by U.S. money and arms. To annex and usurp an occupied people’s country is illegal under international law. The Israelis know that, but their superior military force has always prevailed against the indigenous people.

____________________________________________
President Obama, this week: “I’ve taken this decision with the confidence that action is necessary, and that we will not be acting alone. Our goal is focused.  Our cause is just.  And our coalition is strong.”

President George W. Bush, 10 years ago: “To all the men and women in our military … I say this: Your mission is defined. Your objectives are clear. Your goal is just.”

President Obama: “The United States did not seek this outcome.  Our decisions have been driven by Qaddafi’s refusal to respect the rights of his people and the potential for mass murder of innocent civilians.”

President Bush: “We did not ask for this mission, but we will fulfill it. … We defend not only our precious freedoms, but also the freedom of people everywhere to live and raise their children free from fear.”
_______________________________________

Paul Krugman: “On the other side, we’ve been assured that spending cuts would do wonders for business confidence. But that hasn’t happened in any of the countries currently pursuing harsh austerity programs. Notably, when the Cameron government in Britain announced austerity measures last May, it received fawning praise from U.S. deficit hawks. But British business confidence plunged, and it has not recovered.”

According to KPMG: “Preview figures from the Global Business Outlook survey, compiled by Markit Economics on behalf of KPMG, show that 68% of manufacturing industry respondents expect activity to improve during the next 12 months, compared with just 8% anticipating a decrease.”
____________________________________________

Hillary Clinton: “They are not asking for ground troops, they don’t want us to get in the fight.  Nobody wants to see an arms race in Libya, but it’s not a fair fight.”

President Obama: “I’ve dispatched Hillary to the Middle East to talk about how these countries can transition to new leaders – though, I’ve got to be honest, she’s gotten a little passionate about the subject.  These past few weeks it’s been tough falling asleep with Hillary out there on Pennsylvania Avenue shouting, throwing rocks at the window.”
___________________________________________

Wolf Blitzer’s questions for Hillary Clinton: “If the President is reelected, do you want to serve a second term as Secretary of State?”

“No.”

“Would you like to serve as Secretary of Defense?”

“No.”

“Would you like to be vice president of the United States?”

“No.”

“Would you like to be president of the United States?”

“No.”

Mrs. Clinton said, “No.”

Conservatives:

Sarah Palin: “It’s not government business to spend the working man’s tax dollars recklessly – & certainly not government’s business to centrally “plan” an economy & control an entrepreneurial spirit! That doesn’t work. Government should lay infrastructure, level the playing field, then get out of the way.”

Newt Gingrich on Obama’s slow reaction to Libya: “Well, I think what is increasingly clear is that we have a spectator in chief instead of a commander in chief.”

Newt Gingrich, clearly running for president, remarking on Sarkozy’s lead in Libya: “I was, frankly, very disappointed that [Nicolas] Sarkozy did not share with us his Final Four picks.  And i think it’s his failure to understand the Final Four that allowed him to focus on Libya on a way tha. Clearly, if he had understood the American system he would have understood that his is not a good week to deal with Libya because this is the week to deal with Kansas, Ohio State, and you know things that were really important.”

Rudy Giuliani: “Hillary Clinton would have been better.”

Herman Cain: “That’s what will happen in this Republican competition, the butter will rise to the top because the American people are churning the candidates who are there.”

Former UN Secretary John Bolton: “When President Obama took the office on Jan. 20, 2009, when it came to foreign policy and national security, he wasn’t qualified to be president.  Today, more than two years later, he’s still not qualified.”

Andrew Breitbart: “I actually like NPR’s programming; I just don’t believe that we the people should be paying for it…I do believe that they put our a superior liberal product, and if I want to hear what liberals have to say, there’s no better place to go than NPR.”

Gary Kukis : “Michael Moore will lead the revolution, if it goes by a donut shop.”

Michele Bachmann: “What I love about New Hampshire and what we have in common is our extreme love for liberty.  You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord.”  This turns out to be incorrect, and she was corrected by many newspapers (I would assume mostly by people who did not know this fact either).

Michele responded on her Facebook: “So I misplaced the battles Concord and Lexington by saying they were in New Hampshire. It was my mistake.  And by the way… That will be the last time I borrow President Obama’s teleprompter!”

Carl Gatton, Alaska State lawmaker, when presenting a bill to outlaw Sharia law: “As a kid, we had Italian neighborhoods, Irish neighborhoods . . . but they didn’t impose their own laws.  When these neighborhoods are occupied by people from the Middle East, they do establish their own laws.”

Jodi Miller: “Now that Guantanamo Bay will remain open indefinitely, the Obama administration has requested that Gitmo trials be restarted.  So, liberals, are you now ready to impeach Obama?”

Rush Limbaugh: “I know this is probably not possible, but I would like somehow to have a calculation on how many people in this country actually work for a living rather than siphon for a living.”

Rush: “They should ask: ‘Mr. Obama, you were not in favor of regime change in Iraq, but you have said Mubarak has to go, and you now think Khadafy has to go. Was Saddam not as bad as Khadafy?’”

Rush: “So we’re borrowing $5 billion a day just to service the debt, and the House wants kudos for a continuing resolution that cuts $6 billion in three weeks. It doesn’t add up.”

Rush: “Obama’s just so smart, so advanced, just lives on a different astral plane than we do, and we can’t hope to understand. We should just be thankful we’re alive at the time he is.”

Rush: “David Brooks was smitten with Obama because of the freaking crease in his pants. He said that! And these are the intellectuals.” [Recall that David Brooks is NPR’s lone “conservative”]

Rush: “Remember how they said Gitmo was going to create a whole new generation of terrorists? Well, how about this? Any criticism of the Tea Party will create a whole new generation of freedom lovers.”

From the Conservative Review #170 (HTML)  (PDF)

What idiots. From the BBC: (h/t Weasel Zippers)

Islamic terrorists want war. They want suffering – among others and their own people alike.

They would surely surmise that McCain will give them what they want. Bin Laden himself intervened with what many thought was the effect of keeping President Bush in power in 2004 with that weird tape just before the poll.

I think al-Qaeda would back McCain – that is not an argument for or against America backing him, but it seems to me that the vague assumption that the terrorists would back a lefty is lazy thinking..

The only lazy thinking is this idiocy. al-Qaeda wants total domination, they want their version of Islam all across the globe, and they found that having a Republican in office like Bush bit them on the ass….and hard. They are a shadow of their former self, those glory years being the 90′s when it just so happened a Democrat was in office.

But now, somehow, this bozo believes al-Qaeda wants an enemy that fights back rather then capitulate.

You just can’t make this stuff up….I mean really.

And you just know a post about idiots couldn’t be complete without a Hollywood idiot:

Sharon Stone believes the Sept. 11 attacks should not have been used as a pretext for the United States to launch wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to her comments published Monday in a pan-Arab newspaper.

In her interview with Al Hayat, the actress also bemoaned what she called Americans’ decision to ignore the deaths of so many Iraqis.

“I feel at great pain when the spotlight is on the death of 4,000 American soldiers, while 600,000 Iraqi deaths are ignored,” she said. “War is not a movie, it is a tragedy of dead bodies, victims, the disabled, orphans, widows and the displaced.”

Not bad for a lame duck huh?

The House on Wednesday approved a sweeping $696 billion military policy measure after revising a single provision in the 1,300-page bill that had prompted a surprise veto by President Bush.

Mr. Bush had strongly supported the original bill, which included pay raises for the military and was approved by wide margins in both the House and the Senate. But he vetoed it last month after the Iraqi government raised objections to a provision allowing American victims of state-sponsored terrorism under Saddam Hussein to sue and to collect judgments by seizing foreign assets in the United States.

The Iraqis had threatened to withdraw $25 billion from American banks if the president signed the measure.

The revised bill, approved by the House 369 to 46, grants the president wide authority to waive any provision of the section on lawsuits by terrorism victims as it relates to cases involving Iraq. But it also urges the administration to negotiate with Iraq “to ensure compensation for any meritorious claims based on terrorist acts committed by the Saddam Hussein regime.”

I’m telling ya, the Democrats constantly back down on these things and look even more foolish then normal. Why? Because they always choose the wrong fight. No way they can convince people that they didn’t know this provision they slipped into the bill was not going to raise some hackles. They tried to slip it through and got called on it.

Whether if its on Iraq and a withdrawal, or whether to fund the troops, or whatever. They think they can score political points because they have a slight majority in Congress but in the end they just look incompetent.

UPDATE

And even more Bush – “what am I supposed to do, get down in the fetal position because of your polls?”