The Debate On The Debate
In the Senate, debates can be like rabbits: They multiply. So, before senators could debate President Bush’s plan for a troop increase in Iraq, they had to have a debate about the debate. To go forward with that debate, the senators had to debate the order of debating the debate.
After all the debate, the Senate debated nothing. The nonbinding resolution on Iraq, which would not actually stop the deployment of 21,500 or more additional troops, will not be voted on for the moment. After a day of speeches and wrangling, the Democrats and Republicans could not reach an agreement on how to proceed.
Republicans were the ones who shut down debate. All but two of them stuck with their party, leaving Democrats 11 votes short of the 60 they needed to proceed with a discussion of the troop surge on the Senate floor. At issue were the rules of the game: which resolutions—both for and against Bush’s plan for Iraq—would be debated and whether it would take 50 or 60 votes to pass them. Democrats had offered an agreement that would have opened debate on two measures: one from John Warner opposing the surge, and one from John McCain supporting it. Democrats did not want to include a third Republican measure, sponsored by New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, which said nothing about the surge in offering support for the troops.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid claimed that because the Gregg amendment had nothing to do with the surge, it was not germane. The real worry for Democrats, though, was that the greatest number of senators would have simply voted to support the troops. If that had happened, the Gregg measure could have been the only one of the three to pass. Or it could have passed by a larger margin than the Warner resolution opposing the surge, watering down the message of disapproval being sent to the President Bush. (McCain’s effort never had a chance.)
Someone, I think the world will keep turning in spite of our failure to hear the Senate ‘debate’ this great issue (the whole thing’s a sham anyway. Any Senator who wants to go on record about his feelings on the surge has done so a dozen times already. You can’t swing a cat in Washington without hitting a Senator holding a press conference)…
If the whole thing is such a sham, Mark, then why the push by the White House, Joe Lieberman, and Mitch McConnell, among others, to paint those who disagree with them as traitors? Doesn’t that show that they’re afraid of an official Senate resolution, even a non-binding one such as the one in question?
I think the answer to that one’s pretty self-evident.
Hey, like I said, ‘traitor’ rhetoric is a bridge too far…you won’t catch me supporting that…but yes, I think it’s self-evident that the White House would like to avoid this vote and will fight like crazy to derail it…but it’s also self-evident that they appear to be succeeding, and that DOES say something about bipartisan opposition to the war being overhyped, doesn’t it?…
Nope. It says something about the cowardice of those Republicans who are against the escalation. Chuck Hagel and John Warner voted against cloture on this resolution. The Warner Resolution. The man authored it. It’s hard to say that his voting against cloture (or Hagel’s voting against cloture, for that matter) represent their absolute views on the situation. But you seem to be saying it anyway.
No, I’m sure they’re cowards, as you say. My point is there has to be a REASON for their cowardice…and ultimately, when you keep peeling the onion, the reason must be the perception that to oppose the war will be an unpopular move for a Republican senator…hence, the lie is put to the idea that the war is opposed broadly by Republicans, isn’t it?…
Seems like a procedural detail. Like saying that because the six to eleven Republican senators who had expressed either reservation or hostility to the President’s escalation (and 6-11 out of 49 is between 12% and 22% of Senate Republicans) didn’t voice that opinion “when it counted,” that they’re not opposed to the escalation.
There’s a certain logic to that, but only if you substitute pandering political “reality” for actual reality. Anybody who’d listened to Chuck Hagel for the last month would just be stupid for asserting that his vote against cloture indicated definitively that he supported the President’s Iraq policy.
Hagel is against the war, there’s no doubt…but he’s the Joe Lieberman of the Republican Party – he stands outside the mainstream of his party’s views…
I don’t remember seeing anybody claim that Hagel represented the mainstream of the GOP.
I know Dickerson is smarter that this. Weren’t the Dems trying to end debate by voting for cloture? I thought the whole reason for cloture is to end the debate and vote on the matter? In fact, the Republicans voted to NOT end debate on the matter. But, what do we expect from the MSM and their ilk?
Mark, when you said “swing a cat” did you mean “swing a bat”?
No…haven’t you ever heard that lovely phrase? My beagle is especially fond of it…