This is a follow-up to Tables Turn on Obstructionism in which I wrote of how the newly minted Republican minority in the Senate has become that which they berated for most of this decade - the party of obstruction.
It's a child-like euphemism to paint any party that uses the filibuster to halt any legislation they find untenable, whereby at least 60 votes in the affirmative are required to end debate and proceed to a vote on the legislation itself. Deeply rooted in stately tradition, it allows one party to "debate" the legislation indefinitely so that all may be satisfied before proceeding, but has been used in recent times as a parliamentary tactic to keep objectionable legislation from ever coming to a vote, especially when it would almost certainly be passed.
In that previous editorial, I wrote of how Republicans used the term practically as an epithet against Democrats since they gained the majority under the most recent Bush administration. It was with some bit of irony that it took Republicans in the Senate less than one full month after losing their six-year majority to utilize the filibuster to kill legislation they disagreed with, which was all but certain to pass anyway.
It is with no small regret that I report that the situation has deteriorated far beyond what it was just a few years ago, where Senate Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell, according to the Roll Call and AMERICAblog, has said that his party will filibuster every single bill relating to Iraq from this point forward.
Even with a country that is demanding a military withdrawal from Iraq by a ratio of 7-1 and a President that has seen his approval ratings drop to an all-time low of 29% this past week apparently as a direct result of the sentence commutation of recently convicted felon I. Lewis Libby - of which 66% of the country wanted him to serve time in prison - the GOP leadership in the Senate is hell bent on committing political suicide for their party by obstructing the will of the people and supporting this failed war by any and all means necessary.
Even if it means becoming that which they hate the most.
Quoted from Roll Call, to which I do not have access:
McConnell argued "every Iraq amendment we've voted on this year ... as most things in the Senate that are remotely controversial, has required 60 votes." McConnell added that his suggestion to only adopt amendments that receive 60 or more votes was "the rational response to the nature of the Senate in this era."
Although such a thing is anything but certain, the likelihood that continued Republican defections in the Senate from the President's imperialist agenda may spell an untimely end to McConnell's plan, and is certainly the cause of it.
An article in the Washington Post this morning noted that the increasingly irrelevant John McCain attacked Democrats over their calls to end the occupation, comparing it to "when the Senate voted to cut off funding for U.S. troops in Cambodia in 1970", as if the Republican maneuvering in Congress on Somalia was somehow different.
In fact it was; it was a war not started by them, for their gain, but one begun by a Democrat, for the purpose of ending mass murders and human blight. Apparently, human beings don't really make for good oil when they're dead and rotting.
Though the Iraq fight at home is far from over, Democrats still have an ace up their sleeve, one that, unfortunately, they've been sorely lacking in courage to use. The attempts at mandating withdrawal from Iraq via legislation has failed, but passing laws is only half of the power of Congress. The other half lay within their ability not to pass legislation, the power belonging only to the majority, a power unassailable by the minority or the President himself, and certainly not subject to dispute by our governments rogue fourth branch, Dick Cheney.
Should they be so inclined, the congressional Democratic majority may simply choose to stop funding the war by not passing the requisite funding at all. No minority party can force such legislation to the floor, and the President's only role in law making is either signing, or vetoing bills that are passed and submitted to him, by that very Congress.
So it has been said throughout our history that Congress has the most power in this government, because they hold the power of the purse, and everything this government does costs money. Without funding for the war, which is entirely separate from other military expenditures, the President would be forced to withdraw our forces in a matter of months.
The only circumstance where the military would begin running out of money and supplies would be months after the President irresponsibly left them in combat, knowing full well that they could not be funded, after months of indecision. It is neither a fast process, nor an easy decision.
But ending this war is certainly the right one. It is, in fact, the only one.