The Vote May Fail, But NEVERTHELESS...

The Dems are doing what they should have been doing all the way along. And that is, they are forcing a vote in the Senate on the Iraq war. And they should keep forcing votes in the Senate over and over and over. A sorry clot of Republicans who have broken with the Prez on his conduct of the war in Iraq, refused yesterday to back a plan to withdraw American troops from Iraq. Two Republicans who have been very vociferous in their criticism of the president’s Iraq policy, Richard G. Lugar (R-IN) and Pete V. Domenici (R-NM), said they would oppose the Democratic plan. As Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-IL) said, “Many of these senators have been back home telling their constituents they’ve given up on the president’s policy in Iraq...well, the question is, will they have the courage now to vote with those who want real change?” Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), who is a leading sponsor of the Democratic plan said, “It is on the right track...it is moving in the right direction and it is a very significant change.” But Alexander said he would not support the Dem’s withdrawal proposal. The American people need to see this. They need to see that the Republicans who are voicing their disapproval of the Bush administration’s conduct of its war in Iraq, do not have the balls to show that they have broken with Bush’s policies and that they want change. “You wonder if they are more interested in politics than dealing with the substance of this,” Senator George V. Voinovich, (R-OH) said. Speaking about the fact that the Democrats used the same tactics (such as not allowing a simple majority vote) when they were the minority party as the Republicans are using now, the senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee Senator John McCain (R-AZ) said, “It doesn’t pass the smell test.” Oh my! McCain is surely the wrong person to use that particular metaphor. His whole presidential campaign has not passed the smell test. He has lied, he has kissed the asses of the very people who slandered him in his first presidential campaign, he has made inflammatory pro-Bush statements, he has condoned malfeasance in the Bush administration, and he has flip-flopped on important issues. Now his campaign is bankrupt and he will probably have to pull out of the race, all because his campaign stinks to high heaven. If anything doesn’t pass the smell test, it is Republicans who are willing to talk the talk but who won’t walk the walk in favor of measures to end the calamitous war in Iraq.