Woolsey Rocks The House

Patrick Doherty

May 26, 2005

It is a tale of a GOP maneuver gone horribly wrong—for them. The House leadership gave Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., 30 full minutes for the debate of her amendment that would require President Bush to plan and implement an exit strategy in Iraq—a pullout.

Not only was this the first time the House debated withdrawal, but when the smoke had cleared, 128 members, including five Republicans had voted in favor of the amendment. Most notably on the GOP side was Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., who, you may recall, was the member behind the "Freedom Fries" resolution in the run-up to the war. He's now completely changed his tune, saying he was deceived into supporting the war.

Of course, we know the entire Congress was lied to by President Bush in order to launch this war.

The question is, why have more members not backed Lynn Woolsey? The latest Greenburg/America's Future poll reveals that 57 percent of Americans say that the Iraq war was not worth the cost in lives or treasure. That is a huge blow to the administration. And with that kind of support in the country, there should be 248 members voting in favor of this resolution.

I've received word from Woolsey's staff that Progressive Democrats of America are now mobilizing Americans to contact their members of congress and are staging a series of events next week. Here's their link.