Bush is a bully and everyone knows that the best way to deal with someone like him is to stand up to him. You might not win. You might not get what you really wanted. But at least you won't lose without a fight. And you at least give yourself a chance to come out on top.
Now we have control of Congress and public opinion regarding Iraq on our side. It's not complete control of Congress. It's not perfect support on withdrawing troops from Iraq now. But it's something. The trick is to find a way to translate what we've got into control over Bush's behavior as "commander-in-chief."
Here's my idea....
We can't make Bush do anything. We can legislate. We can deny him funds. We can remove him from office through impeachment/conviction. We can also undermine his subordinates' willingness to cooperate with his dictates.
But non-binding resolutions and the usual kind of democratic solutions (debate, negotiation, passing legislation ... ) doesn't really work with someone like Bush who cares so little for others' opinion, for democracy, for cooperation .... He'll cheat to "win" elections. He'll lie to evade public scrutiny or Congressional oversight. He'll manipulate accepted practices like executive privilege and signing statements to ignore Congress and the judiciary.
Why don't we pass legislation that specifies that certain behaviors will be deemed "high crimes and misdemeanors" subject to impeachment? For example: appropriate funds for the troops in Iraq but state that nothing is appropriate for additional forces and that if he has x number of troops in Iraq after a certain date, he will be subject to impeachment.
Or... if he or any of his appointees authorize say ... waterboarding, renditions without warrant, whatever ... he will be subject to impeachment.
And why not explicitly state that key requirements are not subject to exception or reinterpretation (i.e. with signing statements).
I'm not a lawyer so maybe there are obvious problems with this. But it seems to me that our opposition to Bush is getting hung up on his exploitation of ambiguity and our reluctance to be as creative in our opposition as he is in circumventing normal Democratic "checks and balances.
We're not asking for much. Bring troops home. Stop torturing people. Respect our own Democratic institutions. At the very least, we can put him in the position of having somebody -- us -- stand up to him and use our limited powers (law, impeachment, public opinion) to do what's right.