I have long believed that our systems of checks and balances is so marvelously structured because the men who built it didn’t trust each other any further than they could toss one another.
What do you mean by “broken”? It’s still on the books, so it still has legal validity. I think it’s “broken” in the sense that we, the people, no longer support it. But the way to get rid of it is to revoke it by an act of Congress. Otherwise, we’re stuck with it, broken or not. In fact, it’s time to at least modify the AUMF that got us into Afghanistan, too. That one is waaaaaay too broad, and could even be used by Bush to continue the Iraq war if the AUMF that authorized it were revoked.
If someone else were in the WH, we might not have to worry so much about this. But Bush is so convinced that he’s right, he’ll look for any excuse to continue his foolish venture at nation building in Iraq.
Even Iraq’s own PM says we can leave any time; they can handle it now. So what further excuse is left for not doing just that?
They might say that, but . . .
Harry Reid has announced that if the Senate Pubs want to filibuster this bill, they don’t get to do the customary nominal filibuster where the other side simply counts up its pro-cloture votes and drops the bill if it doesn’t have the 60 votes needed. No, they’ll have to stay up all night – tomorrow night – and hold the floor, like it was in the old days, before the 1975 revision to the cloture rule.
Shrewd move, or something that might backfire?
Fuck shrewd manuevers. Fuck worrying about “backfire”. Put their goddam feet to the goddam fire! If they want to try to sell their load of horseshit, let them stand up and do it. I can understand, to some degree, a strategy of patience, every day that passes strenghthens the anti-war position, but this is a situation where the perfect is the enemy of the good enough.
The vast majority of the people are behind us, let the Pubbies obstruct that will if they dare.
I should have said, “Senate hawks,” not “Senate Pubs.” There will be Pubs and Dems (or, some would say, RINOs and DINOs) on both sides of this bill.
Aaaaaaaand the bill goes down in flames. Guess that’s that. For now.
Only 4 Republicans joined the Dems, making the vote 52-47, quite a bit short of the needed 60 votes. And of course the Pubs can generally count on Lieberman to vote with them on this issue. We’ll see if things change in Sept.
Odd, isn’t it, that the party that understands the need to limit welfare so that the safety net doesn’t become a hammock is so incapable of recognizing that the exact same principle applies here…
There’s still an expiration date to the existing funding bill. The one the Reps want to keep filibustering wouldn’t take effect until October. Before that, we’ll have the September Reports following the August Vacation, and more GOP incumbents staring down the barrels of their polling numbers.