Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has lately been taking a tough line on ending the Iraq war. That comes in the face of weeks of stubborn Republican opposition to any attempt to bring the troops home or to even curb President Bush’s imperial use of power to keep the war going.
Reid should know that if he stands up to that Republican minority, he’s got public support—not just in a new USA Today-Gallup poll that shows that seven out of 10 voters want U.S. troops out of Iraq by April 2008, but in the thousands who have already signed the Campaign for America’s Future petition encouraging Reid to force a filibuster if he has to rather than back down on the basic demands the American public elected Democrats to meet.
That petition, though, needs more signatures as the Senate begins debate today on a 2008 defense authorization bill (H.R. 1585) that will be the Democrats’ opportunity to require the United States to withdraw its troops from Iraq.
