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GOOD FOR McCAIN
February 19, 2007
Kathryn Jean Lopez
Good for Senator McCain.
The Democrats -- and at least one GOP opponent's camp -- sent the news that McCain would spend Saturday in
Saturday's proceedings however, are a disgrace. John McCain, who was for the surge long before the White House was, has made his position on the surge clear. Though vote skipping is not something to encourage in a
As Bill Kristol wrote at week's close, the majority party in Congress has staked their position as those who will "fecklessly try to weaken the U.S. position in Iraq, and America's standing in the world, by raising doubts as to our commitment in Iraq without advancing an alternative."
John McCain wanted nothing to do with the Saturday stunt. So, instead of catching the first flight back to D.C., McCain blasted the demoralizing antic as "an insult to the public and our soldiers to think a cloture vote to cut off debate on a motion to proceed to another cloture vote to cut off debate about a meaningless resolution is anything other than a partisan stunt and an evasion of our responsibilities."
As the former Naval aviator and
The resolution the House passed Friday didn't get a vote in the Senate on Saturday afternoon just before the body adjourned for a break -- Democrats fell short on the 60 votes needed to end the debate, even with seven Republicans joining the majority party's lead.
Democrats would have you believe that the cloture loss was the Republicans indicating that they do not want Congress to debate the war. In truth it was a procedural vote to not continue on to a final vote on a damaging nothingburger of a resolution. On Friday afternoon, newly Independent senator Joseph Lieberman explained his plan to vote against cloture well: "I will do so not because I wish to stifle debate -- the fact is that debate has occurred, is occurring now, and will continue to occur, on our policy in
Those 34 present on Saturday voting against cloture also voted against playing along with what, if comments Jack Murtha made last week and Nancy Pelosi appears to support are any indication, looks to be a slow-bleed play from Senate Democrats to shortchange our troops. First rhetorically, then financially.
As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell put it on Saturday from the Senate floor : "Let those of us who support the president's plan to win in
Again, Joe Lieberman -- the Democratic party's 2000 presidential candidate -- said it well on Friday:
The non-binding resolution before us is not about stopping a hypothetical plan. It is about disapproving a plan that is being carried out now by our fellow Americans in uniform, in the field. In that sense, as I have said, it is unprecedented in Congressional history, in American history. This resolution is about shouting into the wind. It is about ignoring realities of what's happening on the ground in
It proposes nothing. It contains no plan for victory or retreat. It proposes nothing. It is a strategy of "no," while our soldiers are saying, "yes, sir" to their commanding officers as they go forward into battle.
And that is why I will vote against the resolution by voting against cloture.
I understand the frustration, anger, and exhaustion that so many Americans, so many members of Congress, feel about Iraq, the desire to throw up one's hands and simply say, "Enough." And I am painfully aware of the enormous toll of this war in human life -- and of the mistakes that have been made in the war's conduct.
But let us now not make another mistake. In the midst of a fluid and uncertain situation in
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