Senate Republicans decided this week that they would not allow votes on substantive bills relating to Bush’s Iraq policy, but they will push a resolution condemning MoveOn.org for questioning the credibility of a general executing Bush’s Iraq policy. As of a few minutes ago, the gambit worked.<\/p>\n
For procedural reasons, the Senate GOP was able to force its MoveOn resolution onto the floor this afternoon, but Senate Dems made it a little tougher for members by offering an alternative resolution. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) sponsored a measure that condemned all<\/i> political attacks on U.S. troops. That included the “Betray Us” ad, but it also included smearing John Kerry in 2004 and attacks on Max Cleland in 2002.<\/p>\n
It was a compelling pitch. If Republicans are outraged by criticism of those who serve in the Armed Forces, is their disgust equal-opportunity, or are they only bothered by criticism of those they perceive as being on their “side”? Are they concerned about one newspaper ad, or about the broader issue of besmirching others who wear the uniform?<\/p>\n
Alas, Republicans are more narrowly focused, and were unwilling to criticize attacks levied by their own.<\/p>\n
When Boxer’s amendment came to the floor, it needed 60 votes to pass. Republicans, regrettably, voted against the measure.<\/p>\n
Shortly thereafter, Sen. Cornyn’s more narrow, anti-MoveOn measure received a vote, and passed easily, thanks to 25 Dems breaking ranks. The final tally was 72-25. It’s disappointing, but not surprising.<\/p>\n
Maybe now lawmakers can get back to work, and move away from their obsession with a newspaper ad?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Senate Republicans decided this week that they would not allow votes on substantive bills relating to Bush’s Iraq policy, but they will push a resolution condemning MoveOn.org for questioning the credibility of a general executing Bush’s Iraq policy. As of a few minutes ago, the gambit worked. For procedural reasons, the Senate GOP was able […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}