Webb Amendment Goes Down
Jim Webb’s amendment goes down
This was the amendment that would have required that our troops spend as much time at home as they do in Iraq. Disgracefully, John Warner changed his vote and offered a competing, non-binding “sens of the Senate” measure.
You might expect that I’d be outraged at this, but honestly I think this was a really bad move for the Republicans. It may have appeased the batshit insane dead-enders that make up the dregs of their base, but I think this mostly had the effect of truly pissing off Independents, especially the libertarian types who believe in a strong military. In fact, for weeks I have been calling Arlen Specter’s office encouraging him to vote against the Webb Amendment.
“Here’s how it works: we need to WIN in Iraq. If the troops aren’t FIGHTING we can’t WIN. Troops who are stationed at home ARE NOT FIGHTING, THEREFORE THEY’RE NOT WINNING. I don’t care if it takes two years, ten years, or twenty years. I don’t care if it destroys the whole damn Army, our troops must not come home until they win!” Then I mention how unfair the Freedom’s Watch ads are for targeting Senator Specter: after all, he’s voted with the President 100% of the time on pretty much all matters having to do with our policies in Iraq. He’s given the President some of our most precious rights, for you for free one day only. And just as everyone expected, today Arlen voted again in lockstep with the President and the cuckoo bananas crowd that accounts for 28% of America. Goodbye, Webb Amendment.
While the habeas corpus rejection was just as horrible a vote, it is also true that clever but scurrilous people can play around with language to twist “the right to challenge the reasons for your imprisonment and face your accusers” to “special rights for terrorists”, dipping the bucket into the bottomless well of uninformed and misinformed people out there to gain support for a blatantly unconstitutional law. You can make people believe that, MAYBE.
On the other hand, there is no good way to spin “battle weary combat soldiers deserve time off” into a negative statement. It’s impossible. Earlier today, the AP took a shot, with results so hilariously bad I should have taken a screen shot: “Senate fights effort to regulate soldiers’ time off”. What the hell does that even mean?
The Webb Amendment is a popular amendment that it is difficult to oppose: everyone, from the right to the left, acknowledges that our troops have sacrificed as they have never sacrificed before, with tours of duty extended endlessly, the body count rising rapidly, and the political process nonexistent. This surge was sold to the public as “our last chance to get it right”, and now that the last chance has clearly failed the last chance is to be extended, after which time…?
You don’t have to be a hardcore lefty like me to say “enough is enough”: the majority of Americans didn’t change their minds about the war in the wake of the Petraeus report. There may some hardcore Republicans out there who delude themselves that Iraq is going well, but the honest party members know its been a disaster. See Peggy Noonan, for example, or George Will. But there goes the GOP, like the bunch of evil robots they are, standing up against a measure that Americans support, standing against common decency and what I truly believe is the ordinary person’s tendency to basic fairness. I know several deeply conservative people who do not agree at all with the way the military has been treated: some are already talking about third party candidates, or just staying home.
Braco, Senator Specter. That vote’s going to cost you a lot of votes come re-election time (you think the war’s going to be over by 2010? Fat chance, dude). Just as its going to cost Mitch McConnell, Liddy Dole, and John McCain, and a whole host of others.
Way to go guys: I encourage you to support the President on his S-CHIP cuts as well, and you can bet you’ll be hearing from me
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