Here's the first press release:
In a letter to the President -- the second in as many weeks -- Senators Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer and Patty Murray invited the President to Capitol Hill this Friday to begin dialogue on a supplemental bill that fully funds our troops and recognizes the reality on the ground in Iraq.And then this followed five hours later:
The leaders expressed disappointment with President Bush's repeated refusals to engage in meaningful discussions about the path forward in Iraq, but again expressed a willingness to work together to produce legislation that both he and a bipartisan majority of Congress could support.
Reid and Speaker Pelosi initially invited the President on March 28th to sit down and work with Congress to produce legislation that gives our troops the resources they need and a strategy worthy of their sacrifices.
The President has responded thus far with inflexible veto threats.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi today issued the following statement in response to President Bush's rejection of Democrats' invitations to work with Congress on changing course in Iraq:(via)
"Democrats in Congress want to sit down with the President to talk about the best way to both fully fund our troops and move forward in Iraq. We have sent him repeated requests to do so, the most recent today. We have been disappointed with the President's decision to avoid a serious, substantive discussion with Congress on Iraq.
"We will be at the White House on Wednesday to talk with the President. We will listen to his position, but in return we will insist that he listen to concerns of the American people that his policies in Iraq have failed and we need to change course."
I guess acting like arrogant jerks wasn't working for them.
BTW, Obama is not stupid, he understands who will be blamed if Congress doesn't fund the troops:
Sen. Obama : I am not yet at the point where I am prepared to say that I'm going to cut off funding, partly because I spend a lot of time in Iowa and Illinois, in small communities where every town hall meeting I have I meet with a mother whose son or daughter is in Iraq. And they are concerned not only about getting them home, but also concerned about getting them home safely and making sure they've got the night-vision goggles and the armor and so forth.And then there's this:
Leading Democratic proponents of setting a timetable for pulling troops out of Iraq have refused to meet with the father of a dead soldier who believes a withdrawal would mean his son's life was "wasted."Maybe Pelosi will ask Ahmadinejad about those bombs when (or if) she meets with him.
Army SSG Joshua Hager was wounded near Ramadi when an improvised explosive device blew up under his vehicle on Feb. 22, 2007. He died the next day from his injuries.
Hager's father, Kris Hager, wants opponents of the war to rethink their position because he believes ending U.S. involvement would mean his son's life was wasted there.
"How do I tell my grandson his father's life was wasted by Congress?" Hager said in an email.
Hager told Cybercast News Service that information he's received from his son's commanders led him to believe the bomb that killed Joshua originated in Iran. He believes withdrawing troops from Iraq will weaken the United States' ability to pressure Iran to stop supplying insurgent forces with weapons.
Hager has tried -- without success -- to schedule meetings or phone calls with some of the leading proponents of a military withdrawal, including Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania.
[...]
"Each of their offices said they were too busy to speak with me," Hager said. The Florida resident's own elected officials -- Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, and Republicans Sen. Mel Martinez and Rep. Vern Buchanan -- all spoke with him over the phone to express their sympathies.
It's a sad day when the Democrats aren't prepared to talk to the relative of a fallen soldier. They'll meet with anti-war people, they should meet with him. Why insulate yourself from another point of view? That's what despots do.
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