{"id":12842,"date":"2007-09-11T11:13:37","date_gmt":"2007-09-11T15:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/12842.html"},"modified":"2007-09-11T11:13:37","modified_gmt":"2007-09-11T15:13:37","slug":"one-of-11-gop-moderates-breaks-ranks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/one-of-11-gop-moderates-breaks-ranks\/","title":{"rendered":"One of 11 GOP ‘moderates’ breaks ranks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four months ago, when it came time for Congress to vote on a spending bill for the war in Iraq with a timeline for withdrawal, a grand total of four Republicans stood with the Dems — two in the House, two in the Senate — to force the president’s hand. Putting aside whether the strategy is wise or not, congressional Dems believe the key to a new policy in Iraq is expanding that number.<\/p>\n

The bad news is, the flood gates haven’t opened. The good news, the number of Republicans breaking ranks is about to go from four to five<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rep. Jim Walsh, in a dramatic break with the White House, returned Monday from a trip to Iraq saying it’s time to bring troops home and stop funding the war.<\/p>\n

The moderate Republican from Onondaga [N.Y.] has struggled for months with conflicting emotions about the war.<\/p>\n

“Before I went, I was not prepared to say it’s time to start bringing our troops home,” Walsh said. “I am prepared to say that now. It’s time.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s just one House member, of course, but having a congressional Republican finally endorse a withdrawal and<\/i> a funding cut-off is at least mildly encouraging.<\/p>\n

But what about his friends? If Walsh’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he was one of 11 “moderate” House Republicans to threaten the White House almost exactly four months ago. So far, it looks like 10 of the 11 are reluctant to follow through.
\n
\nThe NYT ran this report<\/a> on May 10:<\/p>\n

Moderate Republicans gave President Bush a blunt warning on his Iraq policy at a private White House meeting this week, telling the president that conditions needed to improve markedly by fall or more Republicans would desert him on the war.<\/p>\n

The White House session demonstrated the grave unease many Republicans are feeling about the war, even as they continue to stand with the president against Democratic efforts to force a withdrawal of forces through a spending measure that has been a flash point for weeks.<\/p>\n

Participants in the Tuesday meeting between Mr. Bush, senior administration officials and 11 members of a moderate bloc of House Republicans said the lawmakers were unusually candid with the president, telling him that public support for the war was crumbling in their swing districts.<\/p>\n

One told Mr. Bush that voters back home favored a withdrawal even if it meant the war was judged a loss.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of these 11 who vowed to bolt in September, one (Walsh) has said he’s seen enough and will now vote with Dems on Iraq policy.<\/p>\n

Maybe some enterprising political reporter at the NYT and\/or the WaPo could do a follow-up on the other 10? If they demanded marked improvement by September, and that clearly hasn’t happened, shouldn’t they be breaking ranks right about now?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four months ago, when it came time for Congress to vote on a spending bill for the war in Iraq with a timeline for withdrawal, a grand total of four Republicans stood with the Dems — two in the House, two in the Senate — to force the president’s hand. Putting aside whether the strategy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12842","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=12842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}