I'm rather disgusted, but not very surprised. I'm not talking about the votes for the Feingold-Reid amendment, but the reaction to it, especially the reaction targeted towards Tester and Webb.
Much of this reaction has to do with a fundamental misunderstanding about what they, and democrats in general, ran on in 2006 as well as a faulty assumption about what it means to be "anti-war" (and both of these issues are intertwined).
First off, lets talk about what democrats actually ran on in 2006. Let's look at this quote from Jon Tester's website when I was running for Senate:
Montanans deserve a senator who’ll demand the President present a clear plan to give the Iraqi military control of their own country and bring our troops home. As your senator, Tester will never waver in keeping America safe and strong. Jon will keep the commitment we have made to our soldiers and veterans and will ask the tough questions to ensure that our troops have a clear mission and all the resources they need.
One of the most relevant passages that you'll notice is this: "Jon will...ensure that our troops have...all the resources they need."
In other words, he is pretty much explicitly saying that he will not vote for defunding the war before the troops are already home, since it is difficult to argue that a vote for defunding is helping to ensure that troops have "all the resources they need."
You'll also see his position on Iraq: his position isn't to get out now, his position is to try to force Bush to implement a better plan.
Lets see what Webb says about Iraq:
What we really need to do is to get into the arena where we can talk about a strategy, talk about the pluses and the minuses of the Baker-Hamilton Commission and work toward a solution that, on the one hand, will allow us to remove our combat troops, but on the other, will increase the stability of the region, allow us to continue to fight against international terrorism and allow us, as a nation, to address our strategic interests around the world. And this is — this is one of the drawbacks that we've had with so many troops having been put into this constant rotational basis inside one country when we have a war against international terrorism that's global.
When asked about cutting funds, he said:
I — you know, I lived through Vietnam. I lived through it as a Marine and I know that those sorts of approaches, while they seem attractive on one level are really not that realistic.
In all, his position is rather similar to Tester: try to force a change in strategy that will lead to troops coming home, but they're not holding a "bring them home now. period." position.
So in the end, people are bashing Tester and Webb for some sort of betrayal of trust or going back on their words when they voted exactly as they said they would.
The second part of my point is the faulty assumption that, to be anti-war, then you must be in favor of any and all means to end the war, no matter what those means are. This ranges from cutting off funding to impeachment of the entire administration.
I say this is a misguided assumption for two reasons.
First off, members are still politicians, and politics still matter. Many people who are anti-war have essentially said that ending the war by any means is worth the political cost it would cost (ie, ending the war would be worth the Democratic Party being thrown into the gutter for 20 years) or attempt to argue that it is impossible that ending the war could politically cost democrats, regardless of the means they use to do it, even though poll after poll have made clear that about the most unpopular action that could be taken is to cut off funding. The surge generally gets as much if not more support than defunding.
Second, there is an assumption that there is nothing worse than allowing the war to continue. They see cutting off funding for troops still in the field as morally superior to allowing the war to continue. I almost see no reason to argue why this is a contradictory position because it seems blatantly obvious to me why it is. If keeping them in Iraq with funding is bad, how threatening to strand them in Iraq without funding be better?
In the end, there are many, many people who are against the war, but find it both morally wrong (and a major political mistake to boot) to cut off funding.
This is why I am disappointed.