Republicans in the Senate have been fiercely contesting the majority's attempts to hold a vote expressing the sense of the Senate with regard to Bush's proposal for escalating troop deployment in Iraq. Although the House passed its own version this afternoon, the Senate is still tied up with procedural obstructions.
The primary hurdle appears to be Republican objections to not being permitted a vote on their alternative resolution offered by Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. Gregg's amendment would stop any effort to withhold funding for the troops in Iraq but takes no position on the war or the president's decision to deploy additional forces.
Here's the solution...courtesy of News Corpse, The Internet's Chronicle Of Media Decay.
Let The Republicans Have Their Vote On Iraq. If they are so all fired up to express themselves, why not let them? Let them have their say the same way they let Democrats do it.
In November of 2005, Democrats sought to have a vote on the setting of benchmarks and/or timetables for the withdrawl of troops. Republicans resisted this effort until they hit on a creative way to both smear the intentions of Democrats and force a vote that only muddied the political waters.
What they did was to fabricate a bill that called for the immediate withdrawl of all troops from Iraq. Then they falsely asserted that the bill was the work of war critic, Rep. John Murtha. The media helped to propel that lie. The intent from the start was to force Democrats to go on record as opposing something that they had not advocated to begin with. It was a political stunt that misrepresented the views of Democrats in Congress and further delayed realistic progress on a most serious debate.
So how about turning the tables? A Democrat could introduce a bill declaring that the Senate is:
- in favor of the President's handling of the war in Iraq.
- satisified with its progress to date.
- supportive of any escalation, even it requires extending service agreements or a draft.
- agreeable to whatever level of funding the President requests.
Throw in a statement supporting the troop's presence in Iraq no matter how long the mission (whatever that is) takes to complete.
We can call it the Gregg/McCain Blank Check Amendment. This would force the Republicans to go on record with their views. And it's a win-win for the Democrats. If Republicans vote for such an amendment, the American people will see them as out of touch warmongers who refuse to carry out the public will. If they vote against, they are repudiating their president and his policies.
With the Democrats in the majority, there is no chance that such an amendment will pass, so we need not worry about that. But the Senate is a different animal than the House. It's possible that this amendment could similarly be obstructed and never come to a vote. But the point will still have been made, and Republicans could hardly complain given their recent employment of the same tactic.
How many Republicans do you think would sign on to this amendment? For how many of them would it be the end of their political career?