"Those in Congress who voted for the loan are motivated by domestic political considerations. This is not new. Underlying it is something legitimate: the Bush Administration has redirected huge resources while neglecting the domestic economy. It failed to deal effectively with the recession, and it suffers the proliferation of service cuts in state and local governments. People are saying, how about some charity at home? One can hardly blame them."

The problem is that most members of congress agreed with Bush, or at least agreed to follow him, and now are trying to back away from the only appropriate action- appropriate by their own definition since they would never choose to cede authority to the UN- out of concern for "domestic political considerations." So yes I do blame them, as I blame those they represent.

"A hundred years ago, the radical Randolph Bourne opined, "war is the health of the state." Imperialism requires domestic tranquility, and that costs money. In U.S. history, every great military venture was accompanied by expansion of the welfare state, strengthening of the tax system, and measures to forge cross-class national unity. A cross-dressing Maggie Thatcher could never pass for Bismarck. Bush probably doesn't know who Bismarck was. He's not up to the job of empire-building, and he's too stupid to back down. It seems more and more likely that elites -- by whom I do not mean Barbara Streisand and Alec Baldwin -- will do their best to bring down this incompetent Administration."

I've been arguing this from the beginning, but Max states it well. Maxspeak