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Boy, does Georgia, our country, and our troops in Iraq deserve much better than this driveling fool and proud member of the Lieberman Iraq Caucus:
As the Pentagon notified some 35,000 soldiers to prepare for a fall deployment to Iraq, Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said Tuesday he found “truly amazing” progress during a trip to the country this weekend […]
“Every time I go over there the improvements in the conditions are truly amazing,” Chambliss said in a noon conference call with reporters after his fifth visit to the country. “It’s very encouraging to me to see the progress.”
And back on planet Earth:
Chambliss traveled to Iraq with several other members of Congress as part of an Intelligence Committee fact-finding tour. His comments contrasted with those of another Republican in the delegation, Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, who said in a weekend interview that she found little to be cheerful about.
“The good news is mixed; the bad news is downright troubling,” Snowe said.
Not that Snowe will do anything about it. She is a Republican, after all, and protecting Bush from his f’ up is her and her colleagues’ top priority.
It’s hard to believe that only a week ago, the biggest debate over the Iraq supplemental funding bill was among Democrats. With the bill being reshaped to suit the “blue dogs,” the concern of many was that it had been rendered so weak as to be worthless. Right up until the moment of passage, there was concern that the bill might fail, not because of universal opposition by Republicans, but because of those who felt they could not in good conscience vote for a bill that didn’t do enough to end the conflict. It seemed almost reasonable at the time.
Thank goodness it passed.
There are many good reasons to celebrate the passage of this bill, and E. J. Dionne’s most recent column discusses most of them. Having blown the dust from Washington by starting the Congressional session with the Hundred Hours plan, Democrats felt (rightly) that they had to make a stand on the most important issue before them, Iraq. In doing so, the party — and particularly Speaker Pelosi — put a huge amount of hard-won momentum on the line. You better believe that every newsroom in the country already had their “Democrats in Disarray” headlines laid out. Down at the Fox newsroom, the famous talking points were surely being drafted to include plenty of “poor Nancy” jokes.
In getting the bill through the House, Nancy Pelosi proved that she could pull together her occasionally fractious freshmen and her cautious congressional veterans. And what do you know, she did it without holding the debate open for hours, or threatening anyone’s future on the floor of the House. The value of this victory as a sign of Democratic unity is inestimable, if only because the consequences of failure would have been so painful.
Now that the bill has gone to the Senate, it once again faces a razor thin vote. However, there’s a chance that the bill could be pushed over the top not by gaining support of the last one or two Democratic holdouts, but by bringing in the support of that rarest of creature — the moderate Republican.
Why would any Republican vote for this bill? Because Bush has put them in a horrible position. By continuing to insist on a completely no strings attached, my-way-or-the-highway approach, Bush forces the Republican senators to either sign on to his extremely unpopular notions for Iraq, or to break ranks with their party’s leader. It’s hard to think that any Republican might be moved to “vote their conscience,” since all of them by this point have voted again and again for odious policies and unconscionable violations of civil rights. But if they can’t be moved by morality, they can still be moved by their shrinking chances in 2008.
With most counts showing Senate Democrats needing only one more vote to approve the call for troop withdrawals next year, antiwar pressures are growing on Sens. John Sununu (R-N.H.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Norm Coleman (R-Minn.). All face reelection next year, as does Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), who is already seen as leaning toward the withdrawal plan.
Smith’s shaky position in the polls may be all that it takes to force him to vote for this bill. Or, who knows, there could yet be a Republican who has had enough of licking the brush cutter’s boots.
Once the first cracks appear in the Republican’s sagging dam, the trickle of support to the Democratic side could become a flood. After all, Smith isn’t the only Republican able to read the polling data, and he’s far from the only Republican senator facing a tough battle in 2008. Republicans seem already to be preparing themselves for defeat.
To the extent that there has been movement in the Senate, the indications are that support for Bush’s policy has slipped. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) suggested yesterday that a bill containing a withdrawal provision could eventually reach the president’s desk and require a veto.
There’s little doubt that Bush will veto the bill. But by doing so, he will become the one delaying funds from reaching the troops. It will be Bush who is putting his personal pettiness and ego, over the needs of forces in the field.
Personally, I’d like to see the Democrats respond by putting an even tougher bill on his desk next week, and keeping it up until Bush either signs on the dotted line, or so clearly demonstrates his disdain for those in service to the nation that his signature is no longer required.
In any case, getting this bill to this point was vitally important. Democrats showed an ability to forge a position with input from the whole spectrum of their members, and to move that agenda forward. Republicans showed themselves helpless tools to Bush’s intransigence. And the sweet irony is that a bill many regarded as too weak to help, may be just the medicine needed to move us closer to the end of this insanity.
