The Democrats just voted for defeat in Iraq

It's a good thing that we have Bush because if we had a weaker president, he might cave and give them what they want: defeat in Iraq. And if you think that's too harsh, what would you call it? They don't want us to win because if we did, they wouldn't win more senate seats.

Senators followed their defiant House counterparts' lead Thursday, passing a war funding bill that sets a deadline for withdrawing combat forces from Iraq by next year.

The bill passed 51-46 and now heads to President Bush, who has vowed to veto it.

GOP Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Gordon Smith of Oregon joined Democrats in supporting the bill. Connecticut independent Joe Lieberman, who caucuses with the Democrats, voted with Republicans opposing it.

Passage sets the stage for a showdown between Bush and congressional Democrats, who do not appear to have the necessary two-thirds support to override the president's threatened veto.

Democrats will need the support of 67 senators to override a veto.

The White House quickly denounced the Senate vote.

"The Senate has now joined the House in passing defeatist legislation that insists on a date for surrender, micromanages our commanders and generals in combat zones from 6,000 miles away, and adds billions of dollars in unrelated spending," White House spokeswoman Dan Perino said after the vote.

Prior to the vote, Lieberman condemned the bill -- which he said laid out "a strategy based on catchphrases and bromides rather than military realities" -- as a guarantee of failure in the war in Iraq.

"In my opinion, Iraq is not yet lost," Lieberman said, countering a remark to the contrary made last week by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "But if we follow the plan in this legislation, it will be lost and so, I fear, will much of our hope for stability in the Mideast."

Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, argued before the vote that continuing the war defies the will of the American people and that the U.S. military "should not police Iraq's civil war indefinitely."

What's amazing about Kennedy's remark is that we are actually fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq (that's who's doing the suicide bombing) and the Democrats are ignoring that fact because they believe that they can win seats in the Senate and the presidency if we lose in Iraq (Reid himself said that).