Who Decides When A Vote Is Meaningful Or Not?

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Sunday May 27, 2007 · 8:39 AM PDT

2007/05/27 · 08:39

Which votes are meaningless and which (if any) make a difference? And who decides that anyway?

On one hand, you have the recent toothless war supplemental bill that lacked any kind of timeline and contained consequence-free benchmarks. Everyone knows it was a shocking, rubber-stamped, blank check that would not change the course of the war. Nothing good was accomplished by its passage. As a result, our troops will keep dying.

And, it's safe to say, everyone knew it would pass. As a result, many voted against it knowing they would get the best of both worlds with their vote (I'm talking to you, Speaker Pelosi). Cynical or not? Whatever you think, this kind of posturing is nothing new.

Either way, the war drags on and our troops continue to die in vain.

On the other hand, you had the Feingold amendment that called for a firm withdrawal date. It got 29 votes. But, again, the outcome was a sure thing -- everyone knew it would lose. So I have a similar question for those who voted for it -- was it really a meaningful vote if you knew nothing would be accomplished by it? Or was it like the other vote, was it really just all about "going on the record?"

Not only that: it's safe to say that many voted for it knowing it would lose -- and that they would get the best of both worlds with their vote.

And if so, isn't that also just political posturing of the worst kind -- especially if our troops keep dying while you do it?

Yes, I know there was the option of simply doing nothing after Bush's veto -- technically, that would end the funding -- and the war.

But since when is doing nothing really an option? Edmund Burke said that evil triumphs when good men do nothing. How would that not apply here?

I suspect doing nothing would have simply engendered more finger-pointing and blame-casting, not clarity. Meanwhile our troops would keep dying.

So curse me if you like -- or, worse yet, call me an incrementalist. But I'd rather see one-quarter inch of forward progress instead of what we have now which is a lot of bullsh-t political posturing in advance of the 2008 elections.

Not only that: I'll bet most people in the real world are like me -- if they haven't already written both parties off as hopeless.

P.S. Isn't this why Congressmen rarely get elected President?

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