I appreciate the fact that some people find former Sen. Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) charming. He has a no-nonsense way about him, he’s really<\/i> opposed to the war in Iraq, he’s beholden to no one, and every audience knows that Gravel is going to say exactly what he believes, whether it’s politic or not.<\/p>\n
But it’s probably worth remembering from time to time that the former senator is also, shall we say, a little bit “out there.” For example, Rick Perlstein heard Gravel this morning at the Take Back America Conference (Gravel chose Ralph Nader to introduce him, which wasn’t a popular choice). He explained his approach to ending the war<\/a>.<\/p>\n “We can have all Americans home by Christmas. Doesn’t that sound great?”<\/p>\n In theory. But not the way Gravel wants to do it. He laid out a legislative strategy of passing a war-ending bill, calling up Senate cloture votes ever single day “until you override the opposition.” Once you get cloture, you get a veto – and then, “You have an override vote on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday, on Thursday, on Friday – no weekends off.”<\/p>\n Fine. There’s a great argument to be made for the strategy. But here’s something else he proposed: introducing legislation to make the President and Vice President felons for what they have done in Iraq.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n