GOP Senator Warner "Reconsidering" Support For Webb Troop Bill
Just when it looked as if Senator Jim Webb's troop readiness bill might pick up enough GOP support to reach the magic number of 60 filibuster-proof votes, we're now getting word that Senator John Warner is reconsidering his backing for it and may vote against it.
So reports the Wall Street Journal in a subscription only article. In a bit of a cruel joke, here's the reason Warner is giving for not backing a measure that would give exhausted troops more rest:
...in an interview Tuesday, the senator said he is "reconsidering his position" in light of the administration's willingness to move closer to him on expediting some reduction in U.S. troop levels this year in Iraq. "It took a lot of convincing to make the first units come home before Christmas," Mr. Warner said. "There is a lot of importance in that."
So, because the White House has indicated that a few thousand troops may be coming home, Warner is now reconsidering a bill that would give more rest to all the troops in Iraq. Yet more evidence that piecemeal measures such as the pre-Christmas withdrawal of a few thousand troops merely give Republicans cover on Iraq and allow them to evade supporting measures that will actually change things in a meaningful way.
If Warner bolts it could be a real setback to the bill, since Warner's backing for it would have given cover to wavering GOP Senators like George Voinovich and Lisa Murkowski to break ranks and back it. Either way, Webb has scheduled a presser for tomorrow morning to make the case for his bill yet again. One imagines that the troops are watching.
Comments (18)
Richard wrote on September 18, 2007 6:23 PM:I hold out for hope, hope that the truth finally prevails over this ill gotten war and America may move forward again, this time with a heck of a lot more compassion.
We need to fight for real freedom next time. When we do we can't lose.
:)
benjoya wrote on September 18, 2007 6:26 PM:i thought warner had made it clear that the one thing he would demand from the president is a pre-christmas photo-op. mission accomplished.
tracielynn wrote on September 18, 2007 6:31 PM:It sounds to me like Warner was talking tough about supporting this bill until it began to look like it might pass. It was safe for him to say it when it wouldn't really change the direction of the war.
bob wrote on September 18, 2007 6:39 PM:Sen. Warner, you are not running for reelection. WTF? Do the right thing.
Stop letting the WH make you feel bad for voting against your party. They are the ones who made the mess and refuse to clean it up.
Anyway, I say we let the GOP filibuster. Not for a day, but for a solid couple weeks this fall. You could devote a day to discussing each vulnerable GOP Senator's evolving stance on the war.
(It looks like these first units are just part of bringing the surge back down to pre-surge numbers, so Warner is also spreading the patently phony drawdown meme.)
Chip Fellner wrote on September 18, 2007 6:40 PM:Its time to take a page from the republican playbook and rename the Webb Amendment to The Military Recovery Act or Military Recuperation Act (like the right did with the warrantless wiretapping to Terrorist Surveillance Program). The point is to give it a self explanatory name so that when republicans filibuster or vote no, the commentators will report that the republicans voted against the Military Recovery Act, not against the Webb amendment. That just takes too much explaining.
Captain Nemo wrote on September 18, 2007 6:52 PM:"Its time to take a page from the republican playbook and rename the Webb Amendment to The Military Recovery Act "
Why not the "Support our Troops Amendment"?
Filibuster That!
spinozista wrote on September 18, 2007 7:13 PM:Memo to Senator Warner
While You Were Out:
Hell called. They confirmed your reservation.
Mme Flutterbye wrote on September 18, 2007 8:04 PM:Why must deals be made? If an opinion is valid, why must it be subject to a deal? In other words, Bush will allow a few thousand soldiers to come home, then all the others will not enjoy time home equal to time served in Iraq. This is totally ridiculous! Not to say indecent and deceitful. I hate this governmewnt!!
fuzz wrote on September 18, 2007 9:01 PM:I like "Military Readiness Act".
fuzz wrote on September 18, 2007 9:03 PM:Or "Troop Readiness Act".
JimBob wrote on September 18, 2007 9:28 PM:Warner's got a nice little email contact on his web site. Tell him how you feel.
heliograph wrote on September 18, 2007 9:44 PM:While I agree with the sentiment that it would be important to rename the "Webb amendment," Democrats can't really take a page from the Republican playbook. Strictly speaking, borrowing from the Republican modus operandi would involve naming a bill or amendment to obfuscate its true impact and brazenly imply the opposite of what the bill really accomplishes. For example, the "Clear Skies" act or 2003 actually made the skies dirtier, not cleaner. Just wanted to point that out, because in this case renaming the bill would actually reflect what it truly tries to accomplish -- this is very un-Republican.
So why not go for it, like the Republicans would? Call it the 2007 "Supporting and Honoring the Troops" act, or some such? You can bet the Republicans would go for the emotional jugular if the shoe was on the other foot. Democrats need to play this game a lot better, and fast. Get ruthless, stop playing around. A lot of lives are at stake here.
CK MacLeod wrote on September 19, 2007 1:36 AM:So you all are actually under the illusion that a) the bill, if passed, wouldn't be vetoed, or that any veto would be overridden, and b) that the bill, if passed and allowed to go into law, would in any way materially improve the situations of US soldiers, or have any direct effect on policy in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else?
Of course, neither are true. In short, it's nothing but another meaningless Democratic Party propaganda exercise on the one hand, intended to send messages to those who aren't paying much attention while confirming for people like yourselves that the Democrats are "on your side." On its own terms, the bill itself is an unworkable and hare-brained scheme. Webb himself is almost certainly aware of the fact, though he may try to load it with so many waivers it becomes for all intents and purposes a symbolic adjustment in military policy. Either that, or he's trusting in the fact that he'll never have to take responsibility for it.
Seth Hurwitz wrote on September 19, 2007 1:50 AM:CK MacLeod wrote "another meaningless Democratic Party propaganda exercise. . ."
Nope. It's not meaningless and it's not propaganda. It forces the Republicans in Congress to DO SOMETHING, one way or another, on the war. It should be pretty clear by now that most Republicans really don't support the war but are acting in the interest of their party. In other words, they are neither supporting the troops nor working for the good of the country. Let 'em stand up and vote in opposition to logic and morality, or else grow a spine and some cajones and vote for the good of the country, the troops and what's left of their souls.
heliograph wrote on September 19, 2007 2:01 AM:To have a "direct effect on policy" in Iraq and Afghanistan would require that such policy exists. It doesn't. The phrase "unworkable and hare-brained scheme," however, perfectly describes the Iraq invasion and occupation.
Let's let Webb's bill go forward. Let's have the votes, then let's see if the Republicans can defend them come '08. I'm betting that "material improvement" for the situations of US soldiers then will follow.
Warner always does this. He talks tough, but when the chips are down, he reverts to the scum-sucking POS that he is. He is not running for reelection, so he sides with Bush against the American people, knowing that he does not have to court voters. What an ahole! He reminds of me of Lindsey Graham. Tough talking mouse.
Frank wrote on September 19, 2007 10:54 AM:"Nuance", thy essence is but the smell of bull shut.
The word is masturbatingly parsed for spin opportunity, sprinkled with fear, hype and hope, the shopworn trinity in mufti, that new trinity, cut from the cloth of Bush republicanism, a republicanism that shelters shameful enablers of the most criminal administration this country has spawned.
I don't blame Bush. I blame the sychophants who hold his flowing robe , more descripitive, a flowing shrowd, growing longer with each death of an american or an Iraqi in Iraq, a death based on heinous preemptive lies. I hope the weight of that shrowd held up by the likes of the Warners, the Lugars, and the Powells prove so weighty, that they are unable to hold up the shrowd of hypocrosy,and finally shout to the world, enough is enough, and speak up.
But then I daydream that there is in my time, a republican political profile doing justice to the word courage.
James R Griffin Sr wrote on September 21, 2007 10:25 AM:The White House and the Bush Admin. give the Republican congress their marching orders each day. You can see it in their speeches and their actions. It all boils down to this, Bush got to Warner and the order swing votes in Congress. Why do we have to put up with this nonsense????
