Liberal radio talk show hosts and bloggers are lambasting the Democrats as spineless. A few members of the anti-war Code Pink group are camped outside Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Pacific Heights home in San Francisco. Activists are getting into pointed exchanges with senior Democrats such as Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., the powerful House Appropriations Committee chairman whose rant about "idiot liberals'' during a hallway encounter is posted on YouTube. "What are the Democrats waiting for? Why are they so timid? The American people are way ahead of them,'' former California Democratic Party chairman Bill Press said Wednesday on his syndicated radio talk show. "We've got to get the Democrats some backbone,'' he added, referring to a pending House spending bill that calls for withdrawing all U.S. troops from Iraq by late 2008. The bill, called the supplemental appropriation, is expected to be voted on next week, and Democratic leaders are trying to unite their caucus behind it.
The Senate, after weeks of delay caused by Republicans' blocking maneuvers, began debate Wednesday on a Democratic resolution calling for U.S. combat troops to be withdrawn by April 1, 2008. President Bush has pledged to veto the legislation if it reaches his desk -- and with their narrow majorities in both houses, Democrats couldn't muster the two-thirds necessary to override a veto without a considerable number of defections among the president's Republican supporters.