Bush is Getting Veto Happy

It's not just "timetables" that force him to bust out the veto pen; now it's abortion legislation. What on earth will be Bush's legacy? That he denied women their civil rights to be responsible enough to make hard decisions about their reproductive freedom (under the guise of protecting life)? Or that he authorized a war based on doctored up intelligence that led to the killing thousands of children in Iraq. From Dave Edwards at Znet:

Last December, a conference in London organised by the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics, reported that since the war began in 2003, hundreds of Iraqi academics have been kidnapped or murdered - thousands more have fled for their lives. In January, the Iraqi Ministry of Education reported that just 30 per cent of Iraq's 3.5 million school-aged children were attending classes. Earlier this month, a survey by the Iraqi Ministry of Health found that about 70% of primary school students in a Baghdad neighbourhood were suffering symptoms of trauma-related stress such as bed-wetting or stuttering. (Dirk Adriaensens, 'Iraq's education system on the verge of collapse,' The BRussells Tribunal, April 18, 2007; http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Academics170407.htm)

The legislative director for the National Right to Life, Douglas Johnson, applauded Bush's promise to veto any legislation that weakened federal policies or laws on abortion, by characterizing the president's message as "drawing a bright line." There's that language again. I won't rehearse why I find it so naive, if not disengenous to believe that politicians can draw "bright lines" on ethical matters such as abortion.

Instead, I am puzzled why Douglas Johnson isn't rallying his troops to put pressure on Bush to end the war on Iraq in the name of protecting life. Surely Iraqi children (hell any Iraqi civilians) are not less important than a fetus, are they?