21,500 strings attached

As John Aravosis at Americablog tells us, this Democratic plan to tie strings and benchmarks to any war financing bill is brilliant. Either Bush agrees to meet the benchmarks in order to get the money, or he vetoes the bill and the money along with it.

Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense and the party's leading voice for withdrawing troops, is to report back to Appropriations Committee members today on hearings and legislative language that could stop an escalation of troops, said Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a member of Murtha's subcommittee.

Those plans could attach so many conditions and benchmarks to the funds that it would be all but impossible to spend the money without running afoul of the Congress. "Twenty-one thousand five hundred troops ought to have 21,500 strings attached to them," said House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.).

Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Pelosi, said Democratic leaders have made no decision to hold back funds, but he added: "We are not going to give the president a blank check. We will subject any proposal to escalate the war to harsh scrutiny, and we will set benchmarks he has to attain to get that money."

Of course, he could attach some sort of signing statement to the bill saying he plans to ignore the benchmarks and the strings, but I don't think that would get him very far with a spending bill. After all, the Constitution is pretty clear about who controls the purse strings