Looking at the issues raised by Adam's blog below on the record-setting (estimated at $127-150 billion) emergency supplemental spending request expected from the Pentagon early next year, one wonders: where is the Congressional appetite for such spending expected to come from? In the face of:

• renewed congressional interest in re-asserting and exercising oversight authority
• heightened vigilance among budget hawks in Congress regarding the deficit
• members' keen awareness of the Iraq war's vast and growing unpopularity among Americans
• not to mention, the Administration's apparent strategic paralysis amid quicksand in Iraq

how do you get this lump sum through Congress without an awful lot of time to digest (read: call brass in for hearings)? Many Republicans have already expressed dismay at the use of emergency supplemental requests to fund the war in Iraq. As the Wall Street Journal wrote earlier this year, Senate Budget Committee chair "[Judd] Gregg called them 'shadow budgets' -- because supplemental war requests get less scrutiny, given the relative speed with which emergency appropriations are passed and the deference that lawmakers accord the commander in chief." A good place to open the discussion in Congress of emergency supplemental requests might be at the confirmation hearings next week of the man nominated to be the next Pentagon chief, who would formally issue the spending request, Robert Gates.