BUSH GIVES DEMS THE FINGER

Well it's about time. Appearing on '60 Minutes' Sunday night, President Bush said Congress cannot reverse his decision to send 21,000 more troops to Iraq. He also says the Democrats should put up or shut up: "It's my responsibility to put forward the plan that I think will succeed. I believe if they start trying to cut off funds, they better explain to the American people and the soldiers why their plan will succeed." Where was this George Bush 2 years ago?

Democrats are howling about the White House's new plan for the war in Iraq, but not a single one of them has come forward with their own plan. Well .. that's not entirely true. We do have the Democrat plan for "phased redeployment." And that's just fancy talk for withdrawal. The Democrats know that the public doesn't like words like "withdrawal" or "retreat." They had to come up with another word, - perhaps one with a military flavor, that would mean the same thing. They settled on "redeployment." This is reminiscent of the Democrat effort to come up with another word for "spending." They knew the public wouldn't react well to suggestions that we needed to increase spending on this, that or the other program. The Democrats needed a new word for "spending." They found one. Now you'll hear them talking about "investing" rather than "spending." It sounds so much better when you say "We need to invest more in our public schools," then it does when you speak of "spending more."

Other than cutting and running, the Democrats have nothing. They never have. All of the Democratic freshmen in Congress that ran against the war got there because they railed against the administration. But they have no plan.

So it's about time our commander in chief has gotten it right. We are trying to win the war, after all. So it will be interesting to see if the Democrats meet Bush's challenge. Will they really try to stop his plan for Iraq? Nope..and Bush knows it. He knows he has the upper hand. It's nice to see him finally using it.