{"id":10691,"date":"2007-05-03T12:36:03","date_gmt":"2007-05-03T16:36:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10691.html"},"modified":"2007-05-03T12:36:03","modified_gmt":"2007-05-03T16:36:03","slug":"vacation-all-they-ever-wanted-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/vacation-all-they-ever-wanted-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Vacation, all they ever wanted…."},"content":{"rendered":"

When the going gets tough, the tough leave town<\/a> for a couple of months. (thanks to S.W. for the tip)<\/p>\n

Lawmakers divided over whether to keep U.S. troops in Iraq are finding common ground on at least one topic: They are furious that Iraqi politicians are considering a lengthy break this summer.<\/p>\n

“If they go off on vacation for two months while our troops fight — that would be the outrage of outrages,” said Rep. Chris Shays, R-Connecticut.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the AP explained, the Iraq parliament’s recess would start in July, almost certainly without a resolution to questions about distribution of oil revenues, militias, Sunni representation, etc.<\/p>\n

I guess this means we’re not going to meet this summer’s political benchmarks.<\/p>\n

In fact for their many areas of disagreement, Dems and Republicans, left and right, all seem to agree that a two-month recess looks pretty bad.<\/p>\n

“That is not acceptable,” Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) said. “An action of that consequence would send a very bad signal to the world that they don’t have the resolve that matches the resolve of the brave troops that are fighting in the battle today.”<\/p>\n

Added Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), “I certainly hope they’re not going to take any sort of recess when the question is whether they’re going to make any progress.”<\/p>\n

Iraqi officials appear to see the matter differently. If they’re putting their lives on the line to engage in political negotiations that aren’t going anywhere, why not take some time off … and get the heck out of Iraq?
\n
\nAs for the political implications of all this, I’d argue that this strengthens the Dems’ hand in the fight over war funding. For Pelosi, Reid, and the caucus, this is a chance to highlight the failure of the president’s war policy and<\/i> the failures amongst Iraqis to make progress.<\/p>\n

High-profile Republicans are calling this “outrageous” and “unacceptable”? Fine, Dems say. What does the GOP propose to do about their indignation? Give Bush another blank check to maintain the status quo?<\/p>\n

Dems are looking for an edge in negotiations. This might help.<\/p>\n

As for where Iraqis may have gotten the idea for this kind of summer break:<\/p>\n

Congress leaves for four weeks each August and takes a week off, sometimes more, around prominent holidays. Lawmakers frequently adjourn for the August recess without reaching agreements on important legislation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are, of course, a few differences. One, Washington is not under siege. Two, Iraqi lawmakers aren’t talking about a recess so they can make political appearances in their home districts; if there’s a recess, they’ll probably leave the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the going gets tough, the tough leave town for a couple of months. (thanks to S.W. for the tip) Lawmakers divided over whether to keep U.S. troops in Iraq are finding common ground on at least one topic: They are furious that Iraqi politicians are considering a lengthy break this summer. “If they go […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}