(Cross posted at Daily Kos)

Obama fumbled the ball, seeming to say that if Bush vetoes the Iraq spending bill, the Senate will respond by passing an alternate bill with no timelines because (as he said) no lawmaker “wants to play chicken with our troops.”

I’m disappointed that he didn’t instinctively understand that this is poker we’re playing and not chicken. In poker, you keep your cards “close to your vest” and put on your “poker face,” because if your cards suck, you can still win if you scare the other guy into “folding.” So whether or not Congress holds better cards here (I think they do), you never “tip your hand.”

That said, I guess is that it’ll get buried in the buzz about how much money he raised in the first quarter (the answer: “approximately a lot.”)

Also, I’ll look for the follow-up from Obama’s campaign. Perhaps they’ll expand on this comment, from the same piece:

“My expectation is that we will continue to try to ratchet up the pressure on the president to change course,” the Democratic presidential candidate said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I don’t think that we will see a majority of the Senate vote to cut off funding at this stage.”

Ratchet up the pressure? More analogies! Hmmm [racking brain] what activity in real-life includes “ratcheting up the pressure?” Clamping a piece of wood to your workbench? So you can drill a deeper hole? Tell us, sensei!

“If the president vetoes this, the American people have to continue to put pressure on their representatives so that at some point we may be able to get a veto-proof majority for moving this war in a different direction,” the senator said.

This is the school of thought that says Bush will own this war until the very end — and/or until a Democrat (him?) wins the White House. This is smart politics, but lacks a certain passion and empathy for the suffering endured by military families around this country. It’s not the kind of statement you’d hear from a Russ Feingold, for example. But, fact is, if Russ Feingold wrote the bill it would get all of about 25 votes in Congress (instead of 270+) — and a sea of dreadful headlines. This is primarily what infuriates so many progressive bloggers to begin with.

It’s also why Senators and Congressmen rarely win the White House. But maybe this time it’ll be different. Heaven knows the system is under a lot of stress and tension; anything might happen.

UPDATE: Looks like Feingold wrote the next bill after all (cosponsored by Reid) — and we’re going to have a chance to see how many votes it’ll get.

That’s how you play poker — Reid just pushed a pretty big pile of chips into the middle of the table. Now it’s up to Bush to see Reid’s bet and raise it — or fold his cards (and sign the original bill).

If I was having more fun, I’d have to be twins!