Escalation or Bust!
18 February 2007 1:01 am by Taylor Marsh
Escalation or Bust
Maneuvers. When the Senate should be raising the Capitol roof. Caution is not
the better part of courage. Ask the Dixie Chicks. Now the headlines, start here:
The Senate on Saturday narrowly rejected an effort to force debate on a resolution
opposing President Bush’s troop buildup in Iraq, but Republican defections
emboldened Democrats to promise new attempts to influence the administration’s
war policy. … …
Next up:
Senate Republicans for a second time blocked a symbolic attempt by Democrats
to reject President Bush\’s troop increase yesterday, but GOP defections were
higher than before, suggesting Republican cracks as the Iraq war dominates
Congress\’s agenda.(snip)
But the fate of the resolution is now very much in doubt. Senate Majority
Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) announced after the vote that he would not bring
up the resolution again. Both sides instead are girding for the next
phase, a confrontation over war funding, with some Democrats determined to
exercise the power of the purse to influence Iraq strategy. … ..
The Republican leadership, minority or not, want to talk about keeping all
funding in place for the troops, because Mitch McConnell and others know that Harry Reid will never vote against troop funding. So Republicans want to force the only resolution to get
60 votes to be a vote for full funding of the troops. Escalation or bust.
The Democratic leadership, majority or not, want to control the debate and
only talk about stopping the escalation. The leadership is willing to wait out
the Republicans by applying constant pressure to them, because they see that
Republicans are weakening. Seven voted with Democrats yesterday. Reid is betting
he can pull more away, at least two, as time goes by and the war drags on and the news gets
worse.
I\’m not impressed.
However, it\’s likely gone too far for Reid to back down. Republicans have only one way through. If Reid can\’t get to 60 votes… ..
Meanwhile, everyone has a week off to hear from their constituents, or plot a Senate overthrow. But don\’t worry, if the news gets really bad the Senate will jump into action.
Don\’t bet on it. No one has the courage to stop funding the escalation. While our troops dodge IEDs and EFPs and a raging civil war, all the Senate is dodging is doing their job. And no one has the spine to actually begin a filibuster until Republicans give in, because that\’s risky and unpredicatable, but it\’s also actually something that would get the headlines to blare and the people to pay attention and Mr. Bush to look like the gigantic incompetent commander in chief he is, who keeps feeding our troops into the meatgrinder in Mesopotamia. A man who left us with no good way out of Iraq a long time ago, because he botched the job going in.
The Senate dithers.
And so we wait.
