Senate Passes Iraq Funding, Timeline

Ignoring the threat of a veto from George W. Bush, the Democratic-controlled Senate today passed the supplemental, $122 billion war-funding bill while keeping intact the mandate requiring Bush to begin a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, with a goal of having all troops home by this time next year.

The vote was almost straight down party lines at 51-47, with all Democrats, Independent Bernie Sanders and Republicans Chuck Hagel and Gordon Smith voting to both fund the troops and demand that the Iraq quagmire be brought to an end.

Predictably, Joe Lieberman joined 46 Republicans in voting to rubber stamp Bush's disastrous course in Iraq.

"We've spoken the words the American people wanted us to speak," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). "There must be a change of direction in the war in Iraq, the civil war in Iraq. The Senate and the House have held together and done what we've done. It's now in his corner to do what he wants to do."

We'll find out now how serious Bush is about himself cutting off funding to the troops by following through on his veto and, if he does, whether enough Republicans value their 2008 reelection chances enough to help Democrats in overriding such a veto.

Stay tuned…