“If the president wants to talk about priorities, let’s talk about what is really important to the American people,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California. “I’d rather have a war on cancer than fritter away many more dollars in Iraq.”

“The president is appealing to a very small conservative base of people, his last few friends in the country, to say, ‘I am conservative,'” said Senator Patty Murray of Washington, a Democrat involved in mapping the party’s spending strategy. “But the problem is, he is playing with American lives while he sends his message to his friends.”

-New York Times