Hurry Up And Veto

by digby

Hey, remember this?

President Bush on Thursday called on Congress to approve billions of dollars in additional funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan before lawmakers leave for their Christmas break.

He said the Army will have to shut down bases and start furloughing between 100,000 and 200,000 civilian workers by mid-February if Congress does not clear the funds. “Pentagon officials have warned Congress that the continued delay in funding our troops will soon begin to have a damaging impact on the operations of this department,” Bush said Thursday. “The warning has been laid out for the United States Congress to hear.”

Naturally, the congress got all askeered and scurried to pass the Bush approved legislation so that they wouldn’t be accused of not supporting the troops.

Today, the Bush administration says it’s going to veto it. Why? Because the Iraqi government says one section could expose Iraqi assets in U.S. banks to requests for compensation for American victims of Saddam Hussein.(Oh no!)

The problem is that Bush never objected to the provision before he ordered the congress to pass this vital and necessary emergency legislation that couldn’t even wait until after Christmas or all hell would break loose (which they dutifully did.) Now, without even blinking an eye, he’s going to veto it.

It sure is a good thing that Bush is held to absolutely no standards because otherwise he and his fellow fearmongering Republicans might just start to look like idiots over things like this. But they have nothing to worry about. Only the Democratic leaders in congress are still foolish enough to believe anything they say.

Update: This is bizarre. Steve Benen flags this AP report which says that Iraqi funds are already exempted from such lawsuits. What’s going on?

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