Seven GOP senators reverse course, want war debate

February 8, 2007

The White House seemed quite pleased with itself. After weeks of private arm-twisting and public demagoguery, the Bush gang appeared to get exactly what it wanted on Monday: the complete absence of any anti-escalation resolutions in the Senate. Newsweek highlighted the president’s “notable triumph,” and said Bush “found a way to win, or at least a way not to lose, a crucial showdown on Iraq.”

But as Josh Marshall said, “If there’s no ancient proverb stating that the victories of wounded and unpopular presidents don’t last long, then there should be.”

Yesterday, some of the same Republican senators who, in the name of party unity, went along with a GOP filibuster on Monday, changed their minds.

Senate Republicans who earlier this week helped block deliberations on a resolution opposing President Bush’s new troop deployments in Iraq changed course yesterday and vowed to use every tactic at their disposal to ensure a full and open debate.

In a letter distributed yesterday evening to Senate leaders, John W. Warner (Va.), Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and five other GOP supporters of the resolution threatened to attach their measure to any bill sent to the floor in the coming weeks. Noting that the war is the “most pressing issue of our time,” the senators declared: “We will explore all of our options under the Senate procedures and practices to ensure a full and open debate.”

So, what happened to spur the change of heart? It’s hard to say for sure, but I think it has something to do with a public relations gamble, which the Republicans lost.

Bob Novak explained the dynamic fairly well.

Listening to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell boast last weekend that he had the votes to prevent closing off Senate debate on Iraq, Republicans opposing President Bush’s troop surge feared the worst. The new Republican leader sounded as though he wanted to prevent passage of an anti-surge resolution at the cost of making his party look obstructionist. That’s exactly what happened.

The result of McConnell’s tactics is that no resolution will be passed by the Senate anytime soon. The White House was overjoyed. But Tuesday’s headlines indicated a public relations fiasco for Republicans: ” GOP Stalls Debate on Troop Increase” (The Post), ” In Senate, GOP Blocks a Debate Over Iraq Policy” (New York Times), ” Vote on Iraq is blocked by GOP” (USA Today). Considering that outcome after a tactical victory, the Republicans might have been better off with a strategic defeat.

McConnell and the Senate GOP wanted to shut down debate on the war resolutions without looking like they were shutting down debate on the war resolutions. That didn’t work — Republicans ended up looking like obstructionists, voting against debate on some of their own resolutions.

As yesterday’s letter from the seven GOP war critics (Coleman, Collins, Hagel, Snowe, Smith, Warner, and Voinovich) said, “Monday’s procedural vote should not be interpreted as any lessening of our resolve to go forward advocating the concepts [of the resolution]…. The current stalemate is unacceptable to us and to the people of this country.”

At a certain level, these seven are playing an annoying game. They put politics ahead of policy on Monday, only to realize on Wednesday that they had it backwards. Still, their change of heart is better late than never.

Stay tuned.

After Hagel’s last pathetic, turncoat stunt, I’ll believe it when I see it. Otherwise, attaching the resolution to every bill that comes up for a vote will do nothing more than to prevent that vote from taking place. Simply put, Hagel can shut down the Senate with this one….

  • Let me guess… all of them are up for re-election in 2008.

    As good as it would be to pass a resolution that calls Bush’s plan what it is (against the national interest) that wimpy resolution (IMO) sucks. It says the congress cannot cut off funds, which is exactly what has to happen if the will of the American people is to be realized (full withdrawal of forces).

  • I’ll hold off to wait and see till howl they actually vote.

    If they only read Anton Myrer’s Once An Eagle. To paraphrase Sam Damon’s dying final words:

    “If it comes to a choice between being a good Republican and a good human being–try to be a good human being”

  • racerx nailed it on the head. suddenly these republicans are realizing that america isn’t going to put up with this shit any more, and they just might not get re-elected the next time around. man, reality bites, doesn’t it….

  • Yesterday, some of the same Republican senators who, in the name of party unity, went along with a GOP filibuster on Monday, changed their minds.
    . . .
    So, what happened to spur the change of heart? It’s hard to say for sure, but I think it has something to do with a public relations gamble, which the Republicans lost.

    Ha! Sweet. The Republican should have just took their pill. See, this whole thing is not worth the fight for them.

    These guys are rational actors. At long last they’re starting to realize it doesn’t always help to be dumb and extremely partisan, so the smart ones are stepping back from it. In other situations where they’d benefit from the same sort of movements hopefully they’ll start to see things differently.

  • “Republicans ended up looking like obstructionists, voting against debate on some of their own resolutions”

    Not so much “obstructionists”, more like “incompetent morons”.

  • Still, their change of heart is better late than never.

    That’s right. This is what we want and this isn’t to be decried any more than if you have a misbehaving kid who starts to set him or herself right, so long as the lesson sticks.

  • Let’s file this one away for 2008….

    Coleman, Collins, Hagel, Snowe, Smith, Warner, and Voinovich were all AGAINST the war debate before they were FOR it. I wonder if I should reserve my giant flip-flop costume early? Looks like there will be quite a run on them.

    Dems take a 7 seat majority in the Senate!!! Thanks George W. Bush! Your legacy will be mortally wounding your party as they circle the wagons to defend your misguided actions.

  • The Bush initiated debacle in Iraq is the defining issue here in the early 21st century. All established political leaders need to take heed that the American electorate are watching. We know we need to find a way out of the mess for which this WH is responsible. We will show no mercy at the polls for those who would obstruct our efforts to get our men and women in uniform out of the needless harm’s way they have been put in by this president and his “wrongway poindexter” advisors. It would be most adviseable, for the preservation, no less, of the Republican party, that all Congressional Republicans think long and hard about their deportment in this most defining moment of our current history. -Kevo

  • Like I said before (and the major media all tried to ignore me) the Republicans are going to be begging to get in the Democratic Anti-War Club. No need for compromise or enticements. They need it.

  • Those seven morons still have their collective head up their collective ass. They only prove more strongly the idea that if you want a Democratic vote, you need a Democrat in the office. No wonder the Right holds them in such contempt – when it matters, they cave in. Every time, every issue, as relaibly as the sun rising in the east every 24 hours.

    Memo to Hagel et al: quoting your Vice President (he must be yours since he isn’t mine): go fuck yourselves.

  • i’m moving towards Dale’s position on this one. we gave them a chance to vote on their own resolution, which, despite our majority, we compromised on in lieu of our own stronger version. and they helped block the vote. now, they realize McConnell has lead them into a dead-end. well, there aren’t any do-overs, particularly after we’d given Warner the store on this. now if they want to go on record against the surge, it comes at a price: the language about the funding comes out, and a reference to the surge as against the national interest goes in. don’t like it? take your chances voting ‘no.’

    this is not merely hardball: the alternative is that Warner and the moderate repubs appear to be driving the issue while the majority Dems and most R’s squabble on the sidelines. from a PR perspective, that would not look good for the Dem leadership.

  • No one should be fooled by Chuck Hagel. A report by the Lincoln Journal-Star of a few months ago revealed that more than any other GOP senator, Hagel has voted consistently with what the president wants. He talks a big game for people who watch TV but don’t pay attention to actual voting; but he’s at the same time voting in a way that tells Republicans, “he’s one of us when it comes down to the nut-cutting.”

  • Five of those seven are simply chicken sh*t cowards. Party above country and the soldiers lives and families EVERY F-ING TIME. Had they shown some spine ove the past 4 years of the war, I would be inclined to cut them some slack. But for pretty much every step of the way in this war they sat idly by, not even asking for some accountability from the administration, in the face of all sorts of evidence that Iraq was going to shite. Traitorous cowards all.

  • The Republican should have just took their pill.

    They should have just not fought the resolution. In some ways, talking about the war and escalation after having quickly brought the Dems to heel with a non-binding, defanged, Republican-written resolution would have been a position of strength for pro-war Republicans.

    Trying to get your cake and eat it too is the idiot modern Republican strategy the Dems could quickly deflate in many instances.

  • After successfully prolonging their misery, several top repubs woke up to realize they had successfully prolonged their misery.

    Blocking that resolution was their worst option. But, not only did they take it, they jumped at it. In squashing debate, they only managed to re-assert their exclusive ownership of the Iraq debacle. As Atrios might say, ‘Teh stupid! It Burns!’

    I’m with Dale#10 and zeitgeist#12. Toss the compromise version in the trash. They had their chance at that one.

  • To be fair to Collins and Coleman, they voted against shutting down the debate on Monday. So I wouldn’t paint them with the same flip-floppers’ brush.

    And if I were the Dems, I would frame the letter as a budding vote of no-confidence in the GOP Senate leadership. McConnell is in deep sh*t given this outcome, and there’s no need to stop beating him up over it.

  • We won. They lost. Majority rules. Simple, if only we had the balls (which I don’t believe our too-comfortable and much-overpaid servants have).

  • Still, their change of heart is better late than never.

    Truly, profiles in courage. May they be purged in ’08.

    This is what we want and this isn’t to be decried any more than if you have a misbehaving kid who starts to set him or herself right, so long as the lesson sticks.

    You have to live with your kid no matter how he or she behaves. These people you can attack publicly until they are banished from office. I do not find the cases parallel. (Not even bringing up the fact that children may be excused for being childish.)

  • I would not object to this latest imitation of a landed fish from the GOP but the fact they try to paint themselves as the heroes of the piece really makes me think this is some sort of stunt. If the letter read:

    “We thought about it, we realize we were stupid, you’re right, we need to debate this. (And may God forgive us for dragging our feet while people die).”

    Instead, we get finger wagging, chest thumping crap like this:

    “Monday’s procedural vote should not be interpreted as any lessening of our resolve to go forward advocating the concepts” of the resolution, the letter said. “The current stalemate is unacceptable to us and to the people of this country.”

    Colour me unimpressed.

  • Republicans are pro-abortion when it comes to killing unborn legislation. The Dems have been Spectered® again. Extending the olive branch to Dems only to pull it away at the last second, just like our boy Arlen is so famous for doing in the 109th.

    Republicans need to be treated like alcoholic wife beaters. Quit enabling their behavior, realize the danger of getting close to them, set up an intervention so they can get back to a sober reality and don’t be afraid to call the cops when they get into their abusive patterns.

  • So Voinovich responds to a flood of e-mails. Big deal. Get ready to retire, you were a flip-flopper on Bolton AND a flip-flopper on War debating.

  • I wonder how much of this sudden change of heart had to do with the fact that the House is going to do their own resolution and the Dems have a much larger majority there so can resist Rep obstructionism much more effectively.

    Regardless, Hagel, Warner, et al are all still full of manure and should be ignored. They can’t be trusted to do anything except what the White House wants when push comes to shove.

  • I think what we’re really seeing is that all the smart Republicans were too smart for their own good and got ran out of office for ethical problems. And so they were stuck with Frist, and now McConnell who really don’t understand how this stuff is supposed to work. Even when Gingrich got outmanuevered by Clinton, he still did pretty well. But these boobs are like dumb attack dogs who act reflexively. They oppose without knowing how to oppose and everything keeps backfiring for them. But I’m sure this is the fault of the biased media.

  • I also agree that the next resolution should be a stronger one than the first. That way they can block that one too and look even more stupid and arrogant. The people are on our side, so I don’t understand these Senators. Why don’t we just have a filibuster? At least there will be a debate.

  • Do you think that Cheney has been operating like J. Edgar Hoover – that he has the goods on the Senators and can use that information to threaten them into compliance?

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