Bush funding timeline arbitrary and false

Stop me if you've heard this before. The Bush administration, facing a real problem, none the less feels it somehow important to ratchet up their rhetoric, making the situation seem even more dire than it already is.

Sure, it's said, that sex sells. But being Republicans they can't use that. They use fear instead.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the administration has been urgently claiming that they must get the Emergency Funding Bill now being so hotly debated because of its timetable provisions by April 15, lest the military run short of cash and do things like cut back on the body armor the troops in Iraq still don't have.

Funny thing, it turns out that according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, the military currently has funds to last until July. Josh Marshall, who continues to be the got to guy on the Purgegate, Gonzogate, whatever scandal, has the story:

President Bush says the Iraq/Afghanistan emergency budget supplemental is needed by mid-April or funding for the US troops in those countries will run out. A new Congressional Research Service report says that's not true. Current funds could last them through July. (ed.note: The news report is behind the subscription wall of NJ Congress Daily.)

So why did the president move up the date? Clearly to pressure congress into backing away from its efforts to provide some much needed oversight of Bush's war, and to do so soon.

But since every day provides more evidence (as if we needed any) that Bush's expedition in Iraq is doomed to failure, escalation surge or no, every day that congress continues to stand up Bush is a day closer to bringing this fiasco to its ignominious end.

[H/t Shaun Mullen at TMV]