Daily News Roundup, 12/20/07: Congress Goes On Christmas Break

Following a flurry of bills in the last few days of this year's House session, Democrats closed off the session by passing a $555 billion omnibus appropriations bill yesterday.

The bill is a mixed bag for Democrats: while Democrats exceeded Bush's spending limits by $11 billion, making more than a few Republicans in Congress grouchy at the reversal, the bill also raised war appropriations, originally set at $31 billion and only to be used in Afghanistan, to $70 billion to be used for both Afghanistan and Iraq.

The omnibus bill comes at the end of a series of legislation approved by Congress over the past day or two, including the alternative minimum tax patch which protects middle-income families from taking a serious tax hit, a toughening of the Freedom of Information Act broadening its scope and adding penalties to agencies that don't turn over public documents on time, and the now-famous energy bill that, among other things, raises the required fleetwide average fuel economy to 35 miles per gallon for new cars and trucks.

Despite the recent gains, the Bush administration's recalcitrance to ending the war and insistence on vetoing any bill that makes progress to that end has given the Democratic Congress a good deal of negative press. Rahm Emanuel and the Democratic Caucus went so far as to publish a chart comparing Democrats' work in 2007 with Republicans' first-year successes after they took over Congress in 1994. But as long as the conflict in Iraq continues, so will discontentment. Representative David Obey sums it up:

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat, sounded resigned to at least another year of funding the war in Iraq, against his wishes. He said the only option to changing direction in Iraq was to "elect more progressive voices to the United States Senate" and to "elect a president with a different set of priorities."

Not that it comes as much of a surprise, I suppose, but things in Iraq are still grim. The Chron reports on another suicide bombing, and the discovery of a torture center and mass graveyard just north of Baghdad. Yet another reason why saying that the surge is a "success" because violence is down to 2005 levels is a bit disingenuous. I don't think anyone was particularly thrilled at the 2005 level of violence back in 2005. Army Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling puts it briefly:

"Yes, there are still some very bad things going on in that province," Hertling said. "We are slower in coming around because ... some of the extremists have been pushed east from Anbar province as they've seen the awakening movement there and north from Baghdad as the surge operations took place there."

It would be nice if violence levels were indicative of the strength of the opposition. But that metric fails when they simply move away from stronger resistance to places where they can have more effect on the local population more easily. The Bush administration seems to forget that we're in theory supposed to be there for the Iraqis, and that violence against Americans isn't what we're trying so hard to curb. If we wanted that, we would've just pulled the troops out by now, right?

Here's a surprising bit of campaign news you probably didn't see coming: Yes, Obama's Oprah Winfrey endorsement gave him a whole ton of free press, but interestingly, that may transfer to lost votes among the constituency pundits thought would be most enthusiastic. A third of women between 18 and 29 said they were less likely to support Obama because of Oprah's endorsement. 17 percent of women over 65 agreed, while other age groups had roughly equal numbers that would be more likely to vote for Obama as less. The poll seemed to indicate that people didn't like the idea of Winfrey stepping "out of her pew," which raises questions as to how far a campaign can take a celebrity endorsement. I wonder how quickly they pull her off the campaign trail. Or if they do at all — it's Oprah Winfrey; can you actually pull Oprah off the trail? I don't know. I think most would say that this a pretty surprising backfire, and one that likely caught the campaign flat footed.

And finally, on a somber note, Dennis Kucinich suffered a grave loss yesterday. Kucinich's younger brother, Perry Kucinich, was found dead at his home yesterday morning. The cause of his death is unknown. Our deepest condolences go out to Representative Kucinich and to his family.