The Washington Times reports that Senate Republicans are joining with their Democrat colleagues to begin unravelling the GWOT.
The Senate is expected to vote today to demand that the Bush administration "explain to Congress and the American people its strategy for the successful completion of the mission in Iraq."
Republican leaders are resisting Democrats' call for the administration to provide a plan for withdrawal, but in agreeing that the administration must provide more information and a schedule for reaching full Iraqi sovereignty, they are joining Democrats in signaling that the White House and the Iraqi government must produce results in 2006.
Democrats have grown bolder in their criticism of the war and have forced the debate onto the Senate floor as the body considers the Defense Department authorization bill. They offered an amendment calling for the administration to report on progress in Iraq, explain its strategy and set goals that would lead to a timeline for withdrawal.
Republican leaders, facing the prospect of losing that vote, countered with their own version -- an edited copy of Democrats' amendment that still requires the administration to give a schedule for meeting specific conditions on the road to Iraqi sovereignty, but drops the requirement that the schedule be tied to troop withdrawals.
"I think they're reasonable reporting requirements, but the real objective is to get out of this timeline, cutting and running, which the Democrats have in their amendment," said Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, who is sponsoring the Republicans' alternative along with Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner, Virginia Republican.
Both their amendment and the Democrats' amendment face votes today, before the Senate finalizes its version and sends it to a House-Senate conference committee.
Congressional Republicans might pretend that their behavior represents nothing more than empty compromise in the face of conjured political pressure. A full scale MSM assault has been underway now for weeks against the War, The President, Republican policy, and even personal character. It has obviously taken its toll as popular approval has been fabricated into a negative picture of national consensus. Yet doing the 'right thing' is not always compatible with doing the 'popular thing' as any teenager can attest. We elect leaders on the basis of their personal integrity and constitution, such that we trust them to know that difference... especially when it is most difficult to acknowledge . Hugh Hewitt appropriately identifies the proposed Senate resolution as
...an unmistakable vote-of-no-confidence in the Adminsitration, and the best gift the United States Senate could give Zarqawi and his terrorist ranks. It is almost incomprehensible that Senate Republicans could see this in any other fashion.
It is in fact, nothing more or less. I agree with Hugh. Let them know what you think on this one, before you - like me - withdraw in a state of utter dissappointment in the faith and effort invested with a movement of admirable virtue, clear direction, popular support and absolutely no political momentum. We are flying kites when we should be sailing ships.
So let these men know we have no need of kites...
Senate Majority Leader Frist, (202) 224-3344, e-mail
Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, (202) 224-2541, e-mail
Armed Services Chairman John Warner, (202) 224-2023, e-mail
You can also use the Congressional switchboard: 202-225-3121.
Dear Sirs,
Let me be succinct. Not another Dime! Not another vote!
If you, and your apparently feckless colleagues in the Senate insist on playing political games with the Nation's security (my Family's security) indulging the outright insanity - Yes Insanity - of your Democrat counterparts, while fundamentally undermining both the President and the popular resolve in one of the most critical struggles in this nation's history, then you can be sure that no Republican currently in the Senate will get another dime or another vote from me for the foreseeable future.
To me, elections are national. And although I have little political representation for my own sensibilities where I am from, I count on it elsewhere throughout the nation. What's more, I support it with my hard earned cash. But, no sir! No longer. I've had it with Republicans in both Houses caving in to conjured concensus on key issues.
If you want to ensure that your base stays home next year, keep it up. How many votes do you think you can harvest from the Left by removing your spine and bowing at their feet? You best hope it is enough. Because from me, you'll get not another dime!... not another vote! ...until I see you catering to the sensibilities that elected you. In case you have forgotten what it is you are there to do, let me remind you...
Just do the Right thing!
UPDATE:
Hey there Senators Judas! How about this AP headline that you purchased today?
MSNBC...
CBS...
ABC...
Al Jazeera...
Are you proud of this? Excuse me but your strings seem to have been snipped. I think it can be said now that the entire U.S Senate is composed of jackasses... at least 3/4ths of it anyway which is more ass than brains.
2 comments:
if the request wasn't politically motivated, i'm sure that the president would be forthcoming about this . . . "plan". if the senators could be trusted to keep such reports classified, it would make sense. but it's simply a means of providing political ammunition to say that "he's simply not doing enough. see? see this? there are no dates, no timelines, no real strategies."
We have forgotten that "it ain't over 'til it's over." You can figure out how you won the battle AFTER you've won.
http://mysandmen.blogspot.com/2004/10/no-fate-but-what-we-make.html
Absolutely! Let one Senator voting for this resolution today, define victory, and we can talk. until that is done, i defer to my previous assessment that senator are merely glorified manure haulers... no more wise or credible.
Let's have a hearing to get a timeline for pull-out from the War on poverty. If we have yet to win it with 40 years of income transfers, then Senators ought to have the courage to abandon that war first.
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