Vacation, all they ever wanted….

And you know the rest of the lyrics...

When the going gets tough, the tough leave town for a couple of months.

Lawmakers divided over whether to keep U.S. troops in Iraq are finding common ground on at least one topic: They are furious that Iraqi politicians are considering a lengthy break this summer.

“If they go off on vacation for two months while our troops fight — that would be the outrage of outrages,” said Rep. Chris Shays, R-Connecticut.
As the AP explained, the Iraq parliament’s recess would start in July, almost certainly without a resolution to questions about distribution of oil revenues, militias, Sunni representation, etc.

I guess this means we’re not going to meet this summer’s political benchmarks.

In fact for their many areas of disagreement, Dems and Republicans, left and right, all seem to agree that a two-month recess looks pretty bad.

“That is not acceptable,” Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) said. “An action of that consequence would send a very bad signal to the world that they don’t have the resolve that matches the resolve of the brave troops that are fighting in the battle today.”

Added Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), “I certainly hope they’re not going to take any sort of recess when the question is whether they’re going to make any progress.”