A horse designed by a committee.
Alex, what is "a camel"?
By Moe Lane Posted in Congress — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Odd. I was given to understand that last November the people had spoken with one voice, or something:
Senators seek support for Iraq resolution
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press WriterWASHINGTON - Two leading Senate Democrats are seeking to dispel concerns that a resolution on Iraq doesn't go far enough, saying it would make a strong statement to President Bush that a troop increase is wrong.
"It will be a very powerful message if a bipartisan majority of the Congress say that they disagree with the increased military involvement in Iraq," said Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
Division over whether Democrats should push a stronger measure could spell defeat for the resolution, he cautioned.
"The worst thing we can do is to vote on something which is critical of the current policy and lose it," said Levin, D-Mich. "If we lose that vote, the president will use the defeat of a resolution as support for his public policy."
Mind you, this is merely the symbolic vote that they're trying to - you know, I don't actually really know what they're trying to do, but whatever it is, it isn't 'march in triumph over Bush's broken body'. Which, again, I was given to understand was their mandate, yesno?
Read on.
Here's my prediction on this: bear in mind that I also got the November elections quite amusingly wrong, so no guarantees. But, hey: it's the Internet. WAGs are our stock in trade.
1). Wednesday's debate will be mind-boggingly tedious, with scattered ranting and occasional noteworthy nonsense. The CYA level will hover around 95%.
2). Every Democratic Senator interested in this issue will pee in the soup. Odd, yes, but they like the taste better that way.
3). The resulting mess will attempt to partake of all agendas, fail to address all but one of them*, will go on for at least 300% longer than it should and will be trumpeted as the greatest thing since the Magna Carta.
4). The GOP will then filibuster it. They keep mentioning the same Republican Senators supporting this one, and the number of them never goes above nine.
5). The Democrats will then declare victory - "See? See? If it weren't for those meddling Republicans, we'd have been able to shut down this war!" - breathe a collective sigh of relief at their being able to once again not actually have to do anything and go back to the pleasant task of hitting up their base for money.
6). Which the base will give them. Your guess is as good as mine as to why; delicacy prohibits me from drawing the obvious analogy.
We'll see how that one goes, eh?
Moe
*'Dodging a bullet', silly.
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A horse designed by a committee. 7 Comments (0 topical, 7 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Get them on record opposing the war. Ask why they don't force the President to get the troops out of there, if it's so bad.
There's no Constitutional question. They could make it known that they would hold everything from pro baseball to judicial appointments hostage unless he did what they wanted.
My wife does this all the time, if you know what I mean. Sigh.
But when you know they don't mean it, it's easier to call their bluff.
The Academy: researching the Illiberal Arts
.. an elected representative from a state with a very large Muslim population. He is essentially carrying water for the Muslim Brotherhood. In this sense calling Carl Levin anti American is an understatement.
Quite frankly, when history repeats itself, Mr Levin, if he should survive the cataclysm, must be one of the first ones hung after the conclusion of the inquiries into why and how it happened and the subsequent trials for individual elected representative malfeasance while in office.
We can not sink to the level of blaming men like Admiral Kimmel and General Short for this, this time. Their current misdeeds run on ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN hourly, 24/7, before our eyes.
Failure to be cognizant of past historical mistakes cannot be a defense for these panderers who willingly sacrfice American blood and treasure for political power.
>>.. an elected representative from a state with a very large Muslim population.
It depends, of course, what you mean by 'very large', but I would not normally use the term for a minority of 2%, except, perhaps by comparison with other states where it is a still small minority. New York's Muslim minority is about the same, though of the two states Michigan has much the higher Christian population. New York is home to a much larger number of religious minorities and a larger non-religious population.
Michigan does have a higher concentration of Arabs than many other states, but many of its Arabs are Christian, who often left the Middle East for the US specifically because they are Christian.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
International Editor of
On the one hand they understand the realities in the Middle East, for the most part. They know that to abruptly up and leave Iraq would be a huge mistake, in the non-political but very real sense.
On the other hand, they have spent the last several years selling a pack of lies to their own constitutients, who have swallowed whole a conception of the world which is entirely false.
This sort of non-binding resolution is the perfect solution for them. It allows Bush to continue to do what they privately know must be done while giving their credulous followers the appearence that they are following through on their campaign rhetoric. If it was not also giving encouragement to the terrorists and their backers I'd be almost inclined to congratulate the Dems on their cleverness.
Which raise the question, should Republican's actually filibuster the issue? Sure, it looks bad for the resolution to pass, but it's going to look just as bad for it to be stopped by filibuster. Why not go with principle and just have an up or down vote on the non-binding resolution. Then turn around and work their best to make sure the President gets all the money he needs to support the troops in a necessary war the country now wants out of but can't afford to lose, even if they manage to lose it with honor.
BTW: Why so conservative on #1? I'd say the CYA factor is more likely to be approaching 9 sigmas.
1). The GOP will filibuster because that'll be part of the deal made on this one. There are bills that aren't resolved via a process not unlike that of Kabuki theater; this ain't one of them.
2). There's always a few Senators who'll go gonzo, but I was guesstimating. So we'll call it 98% and all good. :)
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.
This is not a Profiles in Courage moment, the reluctance to transmit stronger whiffs of meaningless gas to paper does not say much for these poseurs.
What happened to the rumbles about cutting off funding, the "we control the purse strings" stuff? What it boils down to is that they are afraid to do anything they might actually be responsible for, which should be a hint as just how wrong Bush supposedly is ?
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville