Calling Bush's Bluff - Part II

I find this whole business of the Republican Administration holding hostage U.S. troops in Iraq to be nauseating. Here is Joe Scarborough's wrap-up of Pat Buchanan's analysis:

SCARBOROUGH: We're going to have to leave it there. Craig Crawford, Nico Pitney and Pat Buchanan, thank you. And Pat is laughing. If you want to know why Pat's laughing, that's sort of the smile of a Cheshire cat. Pat knows what's coming. He's seen it before, and he knows that the Democratic Party is absolutely horrified of being set up as an anti-war party that is not going to fund troops in the war zone. It is a high-risk game not only that the Democrats are playing but that George W. Bush is playing. And when I use "game," it's just an expression describing the political back-and-forth. It's obviously both sides understand how serious these stakes are, but also both sides care very deeply about what they're fighting for, and they believe that they're right on Iraq. And they believe lives are at stake, and so they're willing to fight to the bitter end. We're just going to see, though, who blinks first and who never blinks first will determine the future course of this war and U.S. history for at least the next 20 years in the Middle East.

Republicans seem to think they have a winning hand here. It's a bluff. It's time for Democrats to call. Democrats need to be deadly serious and do whatever is necessary to stop this war, including the removal of funding. If they waffle, then nothing more will happen to end the war until the next election, and more troops will needlessly die and American influence in the world will continue to degenerate.

[UPDATE: David Sirota games the possibilities.]