Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was pissed he didn't get his way. He wanted a referendum condemning the President's new Iraq strategy but what he got was a demonstration of the weakness of the support for such a measure.
Yeah, he protested that Republicans were blocking debate on the non-binding resolution, but in fact, the opposite was true: they were blocking ending the debate on the resolution.
Of course it is correct that Republicans were preventing the reolution from reaching the floor for a vote.
But it is also true that Senator Reid has done as much to prevent it from being voted on as Republicans have. And that is precisely because Semator Reid refused to allow the resolution from New Hampshire's Judd Gregg to reach the floor of the Senate to even be debated.
Why? Because of what the Gregg Amendment says
It says, "It is the sense of Congress that Congress should not take any action that will endanger United States military forces in the field, including the elimination or reduction of funds for troops in the field, as such action with respect to funding would undermine their safety or harm their effectiveness in pursing their assigned missions."
So what's the problem with that?
Well, the problem is that too many Democrats would vote for it: few want to be seen as not supporting the troops.
Senator Reid referred to Gregg's proposal as "a diversionary tactic"
because, he said, his resolution does not address the key issue on voters' minds - the conduct of the war in Iraq.
But the fact is, this is a key issue. The President is Commander-in-Chief. Congress holds the purse strings. What good is it if you make a negative statement in a matter about which you have no constitutional control, but refuse to make a statement in an area in which you do? The President conducts the war and Congress funds it: or not. So the Gregg Resolution is more germane to the Congress' sphere of influence than the Warner-Levin resolution.
This vote is about being fair to the bipartisan majority of Senators who seek to voice their opposition to the President’s plan to escalate the war.
But this isn't even true. Remember, the Democrats only have 50 votes in the Senate and in the vote for cloture yesterday
The final vote was 49-47, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., voted no in a move that allows him to bring the issue back up.
You might be able to argue Democrats had a plurality, but not a majority.
The fact that they won't allow their caucus to take a stand on whether or not they will continue to fund the war in Iraq is nothing less than political cowardice.
The same cowardice the show the enemy every day they talk about cutting and running and abandoning the people of Iraq.
