Democrats capitulate again, will now talk to Bush

Washington Times:

Democratic leaders last night accepted President Bush's offer to discuss the war-funding standoff, capitulating to the White House request after a day of alternately snubbing the invite and proposing meetings on their own turf.
"We will be at the White House on Wednesday to talk with the president," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a joint statement released last night.
"We will listen to his position, but in return we will insist that he listen to concerns of the American people that his policies in Iraq have failed and we need to change course," they said.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Reid balked when the White House announced that the Nevada Democrat had agreed to attend the meeting and discuss the $100 billion war-funding bill that Mr. Bush has vowed to veto.
Reid spokesman Jim Manley had said the Nevada Democrat would rebuff offers to talk until he gets "a signal from the White House that they are prepared to drop their demand that this meeting is a listening session only and this meeting will not include negotiations."
Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, also began the day declining Mr. Bush's invitation -- reiterating the stance the leaders took Tuesday after the White House characterized Congress' role in the meeting as listeners not negotiators.
There was no indication from the White House last night that the president had altered the terms of his invitation.
The White House had said it was "perplexed" by the dispute over the regularly scheduled Wednesday meeting with congressional leaders, which it said would focus on the war-funding bills with veto-provoking timetables to pull out troops from Iraq. ...

The Democrats embarrassed themselves with their eagerness to talk to our enemies but refusing to hear what the President had to say. It exposed their cravenness in ways that were to hard to ignore.