The President had some strong words for the Dems in his weekly radio address today:

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Saturday that a Democratic plan to set an end date for the war gives “our enemies the victory they desperately want.”

[...]

“Instead of approving this funding, Democrats in Congress have spent the past 68 days pushing legislation that would undercut our troops,” he said in his weekly radio address. “They passed bills that would impose restrictions on our military commanders and set an arbitrary date for withdrawal from Iraq, giving our enemies the victory they desperately want.”

Bush’s stance here isn’t exactly news.  The President has been nothing if not a “stick to yer guns” leader, pursuing the agendas both domestic and foreign that he campaigned on (and was elected on) twice.  What’s notable about this news article is Democrat Harry Reid’s response to the President’s words:

In a statement, Reid, D-Nev., responded: “Democrats are continuing to fight to fully fund our troops and give them a strategy for success worthy of their sacrifices. President Bush continues to insist that we follow his same failed strategy that has drawn our troops further into an intractable civil war.”

It’s amazing how Reid can get away with lying to the American people on this point.  He himself sponsored, along with Wisconsin’s Russ Feingold, legislation that would unequivocally withdraw funds from the troops in Iraq.  Feingold even bragged that Congress had cut off funds for a war in the past, claiming that in 1993 Congress pulled funds from the war in Somalia.  Of course, when Congress pulled funding in 1993 it was after President Clinton had already decided to end the operation, so Feingold’s being a bit dishonest there as well.  But I digress.

The point here is that the Democrats aren’t fighting to fully fund the troops.  They’re outright lying to the public on that point.  They are, in fact, doing everything they can to delay funds to the troops.  Which is why they loaded up the recently failed Iraq spending bill with $20 billion in pork and a withdrawal date they knew the President would reject.  They knew the bill would fail, and they were just happy to see it do that.  And, instead of staying in session to get a bill passed that would get funding to the military before it had to cut budgets on training and equipment maintenance, the Dems adjourned for a nice, leisurely Easter vacation.

If the Democrats were sincere about wanting to fully fund the troops they would divorce the “withdraw from Iraq” issue from the funding issue.  They would appropriate the money our military needs right now to continue operations in Iraq while debating whether or not to continue those operations separately.  But they aren’t sincere at all.  They’re trying to force a loss in Iraq to embarrass the President and Republicans, and they’ll do whatever they can to achieve that goal.  Up to and including leaving our troops in the field with broken equipment and insufficient training due to lack of funding.

And if the Democrats were sincere about giving our troops a strategy for success in Iraq they’d be talking about ways to win the war, not give up and come home.