Posted on 02/17/2007 3:13:16 PM PST by zook
When Majority Leader Harry Reid announced late Thursday that there would be a Saturday Senate session to yet again debate a cowardly nonbinding Iraq resolution, Arizona senator John McCain didn’t change his weekend campaign plans.
Good for Senator McCain.
The Democrats — and at least one GOP opponent’s camp — sent the news that McCain would spend Saturday in Iowa not Washington around as if they had McCain in a Gotcha! moment. “McCain’s been the biggest cheerleader for the president on the war — the least he can do is actually show up for the vote,” a DNC spokesman crowed to the Politico’s Jonathan Martin.
Saturday’s proceedings however, are a disgrace. John McCain, who was for the surge long before the White House was, has made his position on the surge clear. Though vote skipping is not something to encourage in a United States senator, you don’t have to be a campaign donor to be glad that he went to Iowa as planned this Saturday.
John McCain wanted nothing to do with the Saturday stunt. So, instead of catching the first flight back to D.C., McCain blasted the demoralizing antic as “an insult to the public and our soldiers to think a cloture vote to cut off debate on a motion to proceed to another cloture vote to cut off debate about a meaningless resolution is anything other than a partisan stunt and an evasion of our responsibilities.”
As the former Naval aviator and Vietnam prisoner of war said earlier this month when the Senate first took up this nonbinding nonsense: “Where is the intellectual honesty if you think that you're sending young Americans into harm's way in a futile effort? I know if I felt that way, I would say, 'My resolution is a binding resolution that cuts off funding.' That's the intellectually honest approach."
McCain's only redeeming quality as a candidate, IMO, is his unconditional support for the troops and fighting to win.
He hit the nail on the head, here.
No doubt. In fact, he should stay away from D.C. forever.
McCain doesn't even bother to vote.
what leadership
The non-binding resolution before us is not about stopping a hypothetical plan. It is about disapproving a plan that is being carried out now by our fellow Americans in uniform, in the field. In that sense, as I have said, it is unprecedented in Congressional history, in American history. This resolution is about shouting into the wind. It is about ignoring realities of what’s happening on the ground in Baghdad.It proposes nothing. It contains no plan for victory or retreat. It proposes nothing. It is a strategy of “no,” while our soldiers are saying, “yes, sir” to their commanding officers as they go forward into battle.
And that is why I will vote against the resolution by voting against cloture.
I understand the frustration, anger, and exhaustion that so many Americans, so many members of Congress, feel about Iraq, the desire to throw up one’s hands and simply say, “Enough.” And I am painfully aware of the enormous toll of this war in human life — and of the mistakes that have been made in the war’s conduct.
But let us now not make another mistake. In the midst of a fluid and uncertain situation in Iraq, we should not be so bound up in our own arguments and disagreements, so committed to the positions we have staked out, that the political battle over here takes precedence over the real battle over there. Whatever the passions of the moment, the point of reference for our decision-making should be military movements on the battlefields of Iraq, not political maneuverings in the halls of Congress.
HSALAW: He hit the nail on the head, here.
Perhaps, but what is becoming increasingly demoralizing, and scary, is how Congress is using their position for circuslike showmanship rather than for its intended purpose which is to legislate. All these "nonbinding resolutions", "mock impeachment trails" in the basement of the Capitol, "no confidence" votes ... blah blah blah
All it does is give more fodder for the MSM to 'report' that the country is turning against the President. It's all a show, and they know it too, but it resonates in the mind of the ill informed of this country, of which there are many
I was just about to post that quote. Kudos to Senator Lieberman - he gets it.
Typical .. they were only 4 votes shy of getting their lunacy passed.
Either McCain KNEW it would not pass .. or he's so arrogant that he just didn't care if it passed or not .. since it's non-binding.
His point is, and I agree with him, that he didn't have to vote on this. No one did. It was a farce and a ploy. Sometimes it's better to ignore idiots in action.
He's been a strong supporter of the troops and of the war. No need to participate in the dog and pony show of cloture.
Ok, so McCain has one redeeming quality. It doesn't go far to outweigh his bountiful non-redeeming ones.
They needed 60 votes to shut off debate and vote. McCain knew they wouldn't get it, so no need for him to be sucked in to the Dem. traitors' game.
As I understand it, it takes 60 votes for cloture. In this case all those who voted against cloture could have gone about other business. Is this the way it is, or does it only take a vote of 60% of those present to invoke cloture? What is a quorum for a senate vote?
They needed 60 to stop the debate.
Only our beloved politicians. Hopefully a few people will see the idiocy and irrelevance of this behavior to any serious issue.
Let me see....wasn't it the people that decided not to vote in the last election to "teach the republicans a lesson" that lost us the republican majority to begin with?? Sorry, I don't see how McCain not casting a vote against the democRAT treason is a good thing.
Yes, he sees the big picture. Sen. Lieberman is thinking strategically to prevent another holocaust in the future at the hands of jihadists, whereas the small-minded, partisan Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi are thinking only about the U.S. elections next year.
WOW!, for someone who changed his stripes to go along with the Wooden Indian, Joe may actually have statesman potential.
If it didn't matter that he was there, then it wasn't a move of courage to miss the vote. If he wants to show political courage, he should publicly repudiate Hagel.
I've had problems with him on quite a few issues, but if he's the nominee, I'd easily vote for him. Just try imagining Hillary or Obama making the selection for the next 2 or 3 SC justices. He's been quite conservative on social issues, far more than Guiliani.
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