Any chance today's vote is the result of past agreements?

[yebrent]

When Nancy Pelosi was able to bring the Out of Iraq Caucus and many of the Blue Dog Dems together to pass the earlier Iraq funding bill with withdraw dates, there was lots of discussion about deals worked out with the blue dogs involving later bills and amendments. Any change that this capitulation to Bush is a result of a deal worked out with the conservative Dems to get their support on the earlier bill? Nancy may have promised them this bill by Memorial Day if all other efforts failed.

On edit:

I don't think it is a coincidence that the first Iraq funding bill passed had the support of the progressive and conservative Dems. Then we had the McGovern Bill (and the Feingold Bill in the Senate) supported by the Out of Iraq Caucus. Then we got this bill supported by the Conservative Dems and Republicans. It looks to me like the two subsequent bills one progressive and one conservative were the result of deals made to ensure the passing of the first bill, the one Bush vetoed.

[PATRICK]

1. Remember the big agenda?

Illogically the Dems came in with a big plate that Bush would have trashed individually anyway. All this working of one dish deals with others is in vain but a puzzling exercise to all those who see the situation much more simply. That means the huge mass of the general public unimpressed by planks and quite cognizant of the obstacle of the big war issue. The obstacle to all this has always been the administration itself. A great show was made of passing laws etc. in the first 100 hours and then caving on the big one rendering everything else practically meaningless including a surrender of the points earned in those 100 hours. They had the political capital and were put on a timed allowance to spend some
and then have the rest thrown into the 2008 lockbox. The main issue has always been the confrontation with and removal of the administration for which they had no votes, no GOP cooperation, no MSM platform at all.

Given that the unreality of the DLC in supporting the Bush obstacle has dragged the difficult down into a personal liability that did not exist before going soft on Iraq. Not confronting the idiotic thought processes and corrupted ideals of what is left of the old Dem guard(disdainfully disassociated from its bases constituencies) has helped them lead from the impossible win to a possible self-defeat.