I'm pretty sure the approval rating for the Democrat-controlled Congress is still a whopping 18 percent. And based on prior threads on this very site regarding recent town halls hosted by Sen. Wyden and Rep. Blumehauer, I would suggest that people are super pissed at the Democrats for failing to end the war as promised. That's the hard part about making those kinds of promises and being unable to keep them. It doesn't help that Speaker Pelosi has said that impeachment of the president is completely off the table, and that Wyden and Blumenhauer have both said they are opposed to impeachment. I thought the whole point of Democrats winning the last election was to end the war and (at least) censure the president, or keep him in check. Why are we seeing none of this? I also recall reading an article earlier today about Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barak Obama all backing out of their previous promises to withdraw troops by the end of their first terms, if elected. It doesn't seem to me that either of the parties have any serious intentions of ending the war. But Democrats promised it, failed to deliver it, and now their base is super pissed at them.

The Congress is unpopular, it is true, but the cure for that is more Democrats and fewer Republicans in office. Voters are mad at them but nobody in the media seems interested enough to dig beneath the surface of discontent to ascertain the cause and to figure out exactly who we are mad at and more importantly, why. Did all our journalist flunk J-101?

All interesting, but the money spent in Iraq is borrowed anyway. It wouldn't be available for healthcare, for bridges, for wheel bearings on Mexican trucks - its borrowed.

Good God, I agree with torridjoe! What's the point of having Democrats in office if they aren't going to do anything different? What's the point in electing Hillary if she's going to continue President Bush's policies?

Most of my gripe with the Democrats over the years is that they fail to be an opposition party when it matters the most. That's how we got into Iraq in the first place--because the Democrats lost their balls, the same way Al Gore did in 2000 and John Kerry did in 2004.

Shock & awe. I agree with Torridjoe. For the first time in my voting life I feel my vote doesn't count...regardless of how my Oregon representatives vote in Congress. There is an overall failure of Democratic and democratic purpose. Transparency applies here....it's clear that many Democrats are more concerned with their political careers than with the mandate from the voters that polls show, even if our votes didn't....we want out of Iraq NOW. We want our Constitution restored to pre-Bush condition.

And if voters in states where Democratic Senators and Congressmen rolled over and joined the Bushies on certain critical votes are as upset about it as I am....we just might lose what perceived edge we have in the next election. It's like hiring someone to do a job and then realizing they are not capable. What would you do? You'd fire them and hire someone else with more skill and conviction, at your earliest convenience...in this case, at the polls, and too many years away for there to be much satisfaction for voters.

But this failure of Democrats to prevail (or even really try to prevail) in the fight to reclaim our Constitution and get us out of Iraq could easily split the Democratic party to the point of giving the GOP the edge. In fact I think the Republicans will be counting on it.

<h2>I am old enough to remember how we ended up leaving Viet Nam.....I predict the same sort of hounds-at-our-heels departure from Iraq, simply because we will have politic-ed and rhetoric-ed the issue to a point there is no other way to go.</h2>