Who has less credibility, Cheney or Congressional Democratic leaders

A story in the Washington Post by Ben Feller entitled "Cheney: Democrats Will Back Down on Iraq" has Vice President Dick Cheney crowing that he's "willing to bet" that the Democrats will back down and not pass an Iraq war-spending bill that calls for pulling troops out of Iraq and the Democrats counter-crowing that Cheney has lost all of his public credibility. I'll continue to vote with the Democrats, but I do have to admit that Cheney is dead-on right on this one. The chaos and lack of leadership within the ranks of the Democrats makes Iraq look like an organized football bowl-game parade. It is completely and totally obvious that the Democrats don't have a game plan to get the votes to be able to override a veto by President Bush. Sure, they can huff and puff for a while longer, but eventually the re-election efforts of moderate, centrist, and center-right Democrats will take precedent over simply trying to score political points and embarrass the administration.

Sure, technically the Democrats might be able to pull it off, but it would take a lot of spine, none of which is currently evident in the current Democratic Congress.

Cheney's credibility may be quite low, but the credibility of the congressional Democratic leadership to be able to exert veto control over the administration's efforts in Iraq is equally low, if not much lower.

I sincerely hope this sorry state of affairs within the ranks of the congressional Democrats will change soon, but I wouldn't bet on it.

-- Jack Krupansky