Edwards To Respond To Bush Tonight By: Mark W Adams

For our friends who say John Edwards steady anti-war position doesn't matter as much as weaker rhetoric from sitting Senators since he's "out of power," even though we all know this will be Bush's war until January, 2008, and the Dems lack a filibuster-proof majority that makes anything they say in the Senate just so much "talk" too ... unless they defund the war and send the same bill back to the President again and again and again until he gets writers cramp from vetoing it.

John Edwards has bought two minutes of airtime to follow Bush:

Edwards has bought two minutes of air time on MSNBC, scheduled to air after Bush's 15-minute televised speech from the White House at 9 p.m. EDT... "Unfortunately, the president is pressing on with the only strategy he's ever had -- more time, more troops, and more war," Edwards says in the ad, according to excerpts provided by his campaign.

The ad was taped at Edwards' home in Chapel Hill, N.C., in the style of an Oval Office address, with him sitting at a desk and speaking straight to the camera, with American flag in the background.

..."Tell Congress you know the truth," Edwards says. "They have the power to end this war and you expect them to use it. When the president asks for more money and more time, Congress needs to tell him he only gets one choice -- a firm timeline for withdrawal."

...In the ad, Edwards says Bush's refusal to end the war is another in a series of wrong moves, including the increase of troops in January and his veto in May of a plan to end the war.

"Now, after General Petraeus reports the surge has produced no progress toward a political solution, what does the president want? More time for the surge to work, when all of us know it won't," Edwards says.

(H.T. Jerome Armstrong)

For the record, Edwards' proposal has not changed since last spring, jump-starts the withdrawal process to spur the Iraqis into action on settling their differences, and ends our involvement as the primary security apparatus in Iraq in half the time contemplated by Barack Obama.

"My position has been very clear. For over a year, I have called for an immediate withdrawal of 40-50,000 troops—not by next summer, not in the near future, but today—to jumpstart the comprehensive political solution that will end the violence in Iraq and will allow a complete withdrawal of all combat troops within 9 to 10 months. Some, like Senator Obama, have said we should only ‘begin’ to end this war now. Senator Obama would withdraw only 1-2 combat brigades a month between now and the end of next year, which for the next several months could essentially mimic the president’s own plans to withdraw 30,000 troops by next summer.

"Taking credit for this gradual withdrawal is like taking credit for gravity. These 30,000 troops would have to be withdrawn anyway, unless the president extended tours to an unconscionable 18 months.

"Enough is enough. We don’t need to ‘begin’ to end the war now. What we need to do now is actually end the war. This is about right and wrong. Our young men and women are dying every day for a failed policy. Every member of Congress who believes this war must end, from Senators Obama and Clinton to Senator Warner, has a moral responsibility to use every tool available to them, including a filibuster, to force the president to change course. Congress must stand firm and say: No timetable, no funding. No excuses."