Seven Republican Senators now regret their vote to stifle debate on the Iraq war.
Seven Republican Senators — seven renegade samurai, or ronin — have essentially blasted in a letter just prepared in the last hour both the Democratic and Republican leadership for behind-the-scenes gamesmanship that undermined a floor debate about America’s options in Iraq.
While American citizens saw a procedural motion to move to “debate” the Warner-Levin Iraq War Resolution lose a 49-47 vote, what they did not see was a snarling, nasty tug-of-war between Reid and Durbin on one side and McConnell and Lott on the other that ripped the guts out of any possible comity needed to get to that debate.
This writer has learned that Senators John Warner, Olympia Snowe, and Chuck Hagel — and others — were highly irritated, angry in fact, with both sides and elected to vote against the procedural motion until the party leaders on both sides of the aisle ceased their antics.
This is utterly stupid. If they truly want a debate then these Senators should commit to letting any ceremonial resolution onto the floor for a vote. As long as none of these have any weight of law the Senate can go on passing resolutions all day. Just vote against Mitch McConnell’s filibusters.
Will that happen? Sure they’re angry, but even a handful of Republican Senators won’t wreck their party by allowing a no-confidence vote on Bush’s leadership. Much as I would love to be wrong it’s hard not to see this as anything other than Lucy teeing up the football one more time.
Zifnab
The Levin amendment was crap anyway. It was the “Campaign Speeches for 2008 Act”. Hillary and Obama and Biden and Dodd would all get to run out in front of the camera stating how they are really, truly, strongly, 100% against the War for real. McCain gets to say how for the war he would be if he were running things the right way. Lieberman gets to tell all the Democrats how they don’t support the troops. The resolution comes up for a vote, passes or fails, and everyone gets to cry crocodile tears about how Bush doesn’t listen.
There are half a dozen different anti-War resolutions warming up on the back burner. We’ll be seeing these debates over the debates till next November. At least Fiengold and Kennedy pass legislation with balls.
dlw
I still don’t get the math. Why try to block criticism of a President so universally disliked? What’s his approval rating these days? Like 29%?
Voting to protect Bush seems to me a more swift and certain way to “wreck their party” than letting him take the blame he deserves.
I’m a Democrat, but I have never voted straight party. But this vote’s pissed me off enough that I can’t see myself voting for any GOP Senator for any office (including President in ’08).
Nope, they’ve shot themselves and their party in the foot. And for what? To provide political cover to a guy who’s screwed up everything he’s touched? To preserve party unity? They’re united the way lemmings are.
MNPundit
I for one am perfectly happy to let them hurl themselves off a cliff. Especially with headlines like “GOP blocks Iraq War Debate.”
That said, what’s annoying is that Steve Clemons somehow thinks this is a brave move that he respects.
dreggas
They are so thoroughly tied not only to this president but to their own rhetoric that at this point they feel as if they’d be no better than a “Kerry” with regard to flip-flopping if they came out and did anything differently. At this point admitting faults of any kind is showing a weakness they can’t afford to show because they have tied themselves to their rabid base ignoring most of the true moderates within their constituencies. As has been seen with their fron-tunners in the pres race, the base eats their own over any perceived weakness and the congree critters know it and fear it. It’s all about their cushy jobs, not about being honest human beings.
scarshapedstar
C’mon, buddy. It’s scorched-earth time. If the county agriculture commissioner has to be sacrificed to get the message across, so be it. The Anti-democratic party simply has to die.
DoubtingThomas
Well, I’m ready for a 3rd party again. Maybe John can start one???? Oh, us tough Dems can’t even get a NON BINDING resolution to the floor? The Repbulics screamed and yelled about the Dems threatening a fillibuster on a Supreme Court nominee (something actually important, unlike a non-binding resolution) and the Dems back down, and now the Republicans fillibuster on a nothing vote and the Dems sit there and take it? I guess they are afraid Bill Donohue will say they hate Catholics or something. Maybe Malkin will be offended by one of their staffers and they’ll have to fire them. Get some balls, already and threaten to cut funding and damn the torpedos. No matter what the Dems do, the Republics will accuse them of not supporting the troops. They need a ball transplant NOW.
I was one of those who blamed the Nader voters for George Bush, but it had nothing to do with Nader. Gore won that election fair and square, but the Dems couldn’t even take a stand on an election they won. Both of our parties are miserable failures to the people. Why do we put up with it??? When is the next revolution?
dreggas
Like the pussified masses would ever rise against anything anymore.
DoubtingThomas
I fear you are correct. I rented “Idiocracy” the other night and laughed my ass off, but now I cry when I think about it, because I can see it happening right before my eyes!
“Welcome to Costco. I love you”
Tsulagi
What, are they cloning Specter up there? So you have seven Pubs, outraged, outraged they’re quick to tell you that they weren’t able to upperdownvote. Yet most of them couldn’t find enough of their spine to even vote for cloture to get to a debate on a non-binding resolution.
I still say drop the non-binding resolution crap. Though it certainly wouldn’t survive a veto, and likely wouldn’t even get to a upperdownvote due to the Specterites, put something up with teeth.
Like a bill providing OIF costs be paid with a tax increase specifically for that purpose. Pubs keep daring Dems to cut funding so they can crank up their “They don’t support the troops” noise machine. A different tactic could be to tell the Surger McCains that if you think our operations in Iraq are so vital, then put YOUR money where your mouth is and convince Americans they should do the same.
Richard Bottoms
Any Democrat who considers ever voting for a Republican running for anything, including dogcatcher is a fool.
Zifnab
The age of “Pick up a gun and storm the Capital” are pretty much over in the US, and that’s hardly a bad thing. Firearm Revolutions usually just put a different set of wackos in charge.
But we can – and did – hurt some of these goons when it mattered, during election time. Now the Democrats have power in a Congress that’s had its nuts chopped off for the past 6 years. And the MSM still hates them. People have marched on Washington. Senators are standing up and making stands. But the situation isn’t fixing itself overnight and in the meantime there’s still a great deal of pressure coming from the other side – the Dick Cheneys and Mitch McConnells and the military contractors who still want us to “stay the course” for one reason or another. We’ve got a one-Senator majority in the Senate and that one Senator is Joe Fucking Lieberman so if we’re still in a bit of gridlock, don’t just blame the Dems.
Zifnab
Off-topic: Edwards grabs his balls and faces down the whinning hordes.
~JohnEdwardsBlog
Veeshir
Now that’s funny.
When the GOP was in charge, votes for cloture were to “stifle debate”.
In the present Enlightened Era votes against cloture are to “stifle debate”.
You see, cloture stops debate and moves along to the voting phase, so the Dems were trying to stifle debate by initiating cloture while the GOPers was trying to prolong debate by voting against it. They wanted to debate sticking other provisions into that useless, pandering, non-binding resolution while the Dems just wanted to vote on what they already had.
I look forward to being attacked personally without any of you explaining why what I said is wrong.
Oh, and yes, I know the measure is “bi-partisan”, but notice that Warner voted against voting on his own measure in order to debate it some more.
Jake
Sure guys. We believe you.
“I’m going to vote against every dog catcher I can find.”
Walt Kelley, we hardly knew ye.
Tsulagi
Good on him. Best thing to do is ignore those assholes like Donohue and just let them inbreed among themselves until they die out.
Zifnab
You’re funny looking and you smell like pooh.
The Republicans wanted to cavet the already toothless legislation to death. Maybe slide in a few tax cuts. The Democrats wrote this resolution for the sole purpose of forcing Republicans to take a stand. The Dems wanted an upperdown vote. Republicans objected to being put on record so they voted against moving to the “debate” phase of legislation, keeping the door open to add a few dozen more amendments to reword legislation that functionally does nothing.
During the GOP Reign, Dem Senators used procedural processes to hold up votes on judical nominees who would control how current and future Congressional legislation would be interpreted. Unlike the hot-air that was the Levin bill, Judical nominees have a great deal of power. Dems wanted to keep the debate running because a handful of the Republicans – Voinovich, Specter, Warner, and Snowe – had a habit of condemning a judical nominee in committee, then approving the same nominee for a full vote.
But this is political minutia. The important thing to remember is that “upperdown vote” only applies to judges Republicans support. And Democrats are hypocrites.
Jake
re Edwards:
Let’s see. On the one hand you have two people who express opinions that some find distasteful on their private blogs. On the other you have…well, the list is endless isn’t it? And in many instances the people involved actually shape (or shaped) our laws, don’t they?
Oh yeah, I can see how a blog entry snarking on the RC or the accused in a rape case is much worse than a bunch of crap weasles covering up for a pervert; calling a vet of the Iraq war who lost both of her legs a “cut and runner”; implying the world will end if gays are allowed to marry or a duly elected official places his hand on any book but the Bible and the all other fucking jolly pranks and jests brought to U by the GOP & RNC. Hand me mah smelling salts, I may swoon.
j
p.s. IN an ideal world Donaspew would be forced to kiss Edwards’ arse. He combines everything that is wrong with the RC in one big smelly oily gelatinous package.
Jonathan
Umm… teeing up the football?
I’m about the ultimate non sports fan, but that struck me as wrong and when I googled it I found I was right. ;-)
/nitpick
I hope the infernal GOP keeps on marching toward the cliff. Nothing would please me better than to see the whole scrofulous horde fall into a black hole and be reduced to a quark-gluon plasma.
dreggas
The dems we elected need to show more spine IMO, at least in the senate. In the house they have been pretty darn good about getting things done, then again the majority there is greater. No one takes Joe LIEberman seriously when he says he’s a dem especially on the war issues anymore so he should just be written off and shamed into non-existence for being a conniving little yutz who isn’t worthy of shining the boots our troops wear.
As far as marching, marching is all well and good when it’s not a freaking circus with about 50 different slogans about 50 different “issues”. Things like “Free Mumia” and “Fur is Murder” don’t belong in a protest against a specific issue, namely war in Iraq. I think, and again this is my personal opinion, that the message would have been a lot clearer if it weren’t for the…colorfulness…of the protesters and their various “causes”. There was no unifying message in many cases or unified person(s) leading them. It looked more like a really really big block party than a protest march. If I saw X hundreds of thousands of people marching on my house in some sort of unified manner regarding dress or even protest signs I would probably take it more seriously than watching a multi-colored procession of people moving in some sort of organized chaos with some on stilts and others banging drums etc. etc. To me I’d think a circus was in town.
Of course this opinion has seen me labelled as a “brown shirt” but disorganization, or in this case organized chaos, does not get their attention. A sea of organization right down to arm bands or something would more than likely scare the hell out of them.
Tsulagi
Plus, the Dems continue to be a man down as Johnson is still in the hospital. That’s one vote. So on anything having to do with Iraq, throwing out Bush’s kissing partner, the best they can muster is 49 votes.
TenguPhule
So if you want to blame anyone, blame the stupid voters in CT who voted that SOB Lieberman back into office.
Veeshir
Good one Zifnab, you did respond very well, but you palmed a card in there and it ain’t working
so they voted against moving to the “debate” phase of legislation
No, they voted against moving to the “voting” phase of the legislation. They wanted to debate more amendments, the Dems wanted to stop that debate.
It doesn’t really matter what the voting is on, before voting for cloture shuts down debate (I agree with this, it does shut down debate, it moves to voting).
Now, voting against cloture shuts down debate (I disagree, it extends debate).