PERMANENT BASES. Now here’s a real sign of the President’s burgeoning lame duckedness: The Senate actually approved an amendment from Joe Biden preventing the administration from using funds from the Iraq supplemental appropriation for the construction of permanent bases.

–Matthew Yglesias

Matthew Yglesias is a senior editor at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a former Prospect staff writer, and the author of Heads in the Sand: How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats. Follow @mattyglesias