Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Obey have promised that they will not fund the war this year unless the President accepts a timeline for withdrawal. They must now make that requirement indefinite. If they do not, they will most likely have to fund the war in early spring. If they do that, they will have absolutely no excuse not to do so again in the fall. You will not have to be reminded of the very important event happening next fall.

We cannot allow Congress to submit another blank check. If that happens, Congress will have funded the war several times with no meaningful concessions. Democrats will have done so.

The 2004 election was about Iraq, so was 2006; there is every reason to believe that 2008 will be again. And that's the pragmatic reason for doing this: Pittsburgh is very Democratic, yes, but it is not, to my knowledge, a hotbed of antiwar activism. In fact, it is very much like Ohio, one of the two swing states in the northeast that's a must win for us next year (the other is, of course, Pennsylvania). Democrats should be able to go back to the voters having fulfilled their mandate to end the war. If they do not, all bets about massive electoral gains in the House and the Senate will be off. Thus we have the nexus of good politics and good policy. Defund the war because it's right to end it; defund the war because it's politically smart; defund the war because it's playing on swing state main street.