Senate Republicans block Iraq withdrawal plan: According to this McClatchy story, Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic plan, introduced by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., which would have required President bush to withdrawal U.S. troops from Iraq within 120 days, and to complete the pullout by April 30,2008. The GOP threatened to filibuster the Levin-Reed proposal, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told the Republicans to go for it. According to McClatchy:
The vote was 52-47 in favor of withdrawal, with four Republicans voting with Democrats, but the measure fell eight short of the 60-vote supermajority that Republicans insisted upon, using Senate rules. The total was also 15 short of the 67 that would be needed to override a veto.
What is important to understand here is that Reid did not back down against the Republican filibuster threat. He allowed the Republicans to filibuster, allowed the vote to go through, and allowed the Levin-Reed proposal to be defeated. There was certainly no chance that the Levin-Reed proposal would survive a presidential veto. What this filibuster does is that it places the Republican Party on record as being both a pro-war party, and an obstructionist party in blocking any measure to resolve the disastrous U.S. war in Iraq. Republican congressmen are supporting a failed president's pro-war strategy in Iraq over that of their political self-interest. Remember, over two-thirds of the American public does not support the Bush administration's war in Iraq. If the Republicans continue to obstruct any withdrawal, or timetable, legislation until 2008, then Iraq becomes THE campaign issue for the elections. And the Republican congressmen are going to have to explain their decisions to support this war to an American public that wants out of Iraq.
But the Republican senators have provided another short-term explanation for their pro-war vote. According to McClatchy:
Many Republicans say that the right time to re-evaluate Iraq policy will be in September, after Gen. David Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq, makes recommendations in a formal report.
I can pretty much guess that Petraeus' report will probably say that Iraq is a disaster, the Maliki government have not fulfilled the benchmarks set for the success of the surge, and that we must continue on with the Bush administration's war in Iraq. So the Republicans want to defeat the Levin-Reed proposal until after Petraeus' report in Congress in September. September is only six weeks away. The Republicans have simply delayed the showdown for about six weeks, until we see the real congressional fight over this failed war. Irregardless of Petraeus' recommendations, the U.S. has lost this war in Iraq. The question now will be when will the Republicans realize that their political survival in 2008 rests with the decisions they will be forced to make on Iraq this September?
Reid Yanks Defense Authorization Bill To Force GOP's Hand: I found this TPM Cafe story, and it is a stake-raiser:
Ratcheting up the stakes in the wake of the GOP's successful blocking of a vote on Iraq withdrawal just moments ago, Harry Reid just announced on the Senate floor that he won't allow a vote on the entire Defense Authorization bill until the Senate GOP drops its filibustering of votes on Iraq.
It comes only moments after the Republican filibuster succeeded in preventing a vote on the Reed-Levin amendment, which would have mandated withdrawal by April 2008.
[....]
What this means is this: Reid is basically saying he won't allow any votes on any other Iraq amendments -- not the toothless Warner-Lugar amendment, not the Ken Salazar amendment that would force adoption of the Baker-Hamilton plan, nothing -- until the GOP agrees to allow straight up or down votes.
Reid says he's directing his aides to enter into negotiations with the GOP side to see if this latest gauntlet throwing wrenches further concessions out of the Republicans. It'll be interesting to see where this goes.
Harry Reid has just upped the ante again. Now in order to confront the obstructionist Republican senators into dropping their filibusters on the Iraq withdrawal legislation, Reid is shelving any votes on the Defense Authorization Bill. In essence, Reid is telling the Republicans that if they don't give any floor votes on Iraq withdrawal measures, then Reid is not going to allow Congress to fund the Iraq war here. This is getting very ugly now, between Democrats who want to resolve the war and bring the troops home, and Republicans who want to continue the war and obstruct.
September is only six weeks away.
Poll: "None Of The Above" Leads GOP Pack! This is just amazing! According to CBS News;
(AP) And the leading Republican presidential candidate is ... none of the above.
The latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that nearly a quarter of Republicans are unwilling to back top-tier hopefuls Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain or Mitt Romney, and no one candidate has emerged as the clear front-runner among Christian evangelicals. Such dissatisfaction underscores the volatility of the 2008 GOP nomination fight.
In sharp contrast, the Democratic race remains static, with Hillary Rodham Clinton holding a sizable lead over Barack Obama. The New York senator, who is white, also outpaces her Illinois counterpart, who is black, among black and Hispanic Democrats, according to a combined sample of two months of polls.
[....]
"Democrats are reasonably comfortable with the range of choices. The Democratic attitude is that three or four of these guys would be fine," David Redlawsk, a University of Iowa political scientist. "The Republicans don't have that; particularly among the conservatives there's a real split. They just don't see candidates who reflect their interests and who they also view as viable."
More Republicans have become apathetic about their options over the past month.
A hefty 23 percent can't or won't say which candidate they would back, a jump from the 14 percent who took a pass in June.
Giuliani's popularity continued to decline steadily as he faced a spate of headline headaches, came under increased scrutiny and saw the potential entry of Thompson in the mix; his support is at 21 percent compared with 27 percent in June and 35 percent in March.
The former New York mayor is running virtually even with Thompson, who has become a threat without even officially entering the race. The actor and former Tennessee senator has stayed steady at 19 percent. McCain, the Arizona senator who is revamping his nearly broke campaign, clocked in a bit lower at 15 percent, while Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, remained at 11 percent.
None of the top candidates has a clear lead among Christian evangelicals, a critical part of the GOP base that has had considerable sway in past Republican primaries. Giuliani, a thrice-married backer of abortion rights and gay rights, had 20 percent support — roughly even with Thompson and McCain who have one divorce each in their pasts. Romney, a Mormon who has been married for three decades, was in the single digits.
The Republican Party is in real trouble, when about a quarter of the GOP electorate is saying that they don't want any of the top-tier candidates. I have to wonder how much of the GOP candidates' support for the Bush administration's war in Iraq is causing this apathy among the conservative voters. Here I'm looking at the moderate conservatives, or the conservatives who have been disillusioned by the disaster of this Bush war in Iraq. Have they started seeing the contradictions between the war news coming out of Iraq, and the Bush White House PR-Happy-Spin? And is this disillusionment reflected in quarter percent of the electorate voting "None of the Above?" It is an interesting question.
6 Years After 9/11, the Same Threat: I should say something about the release of the National Intelligence Estimate on Tuesday, but what more can you say about the continuing failure of this Bush administration? Anyways, here is the New York Times analysis of the NIE. And you can read the full National Intelligence Estimate here. From the New York Times:
On Tuesday, in a dark and strikingly candid two pages, the nation’s intelligence agencies offered an implicit answer, and it was not encouraging. In many respects, the National Intelligence Estimate suggests, the threat of terrorist violence against the United States is growing worse, fueled by the Iraq war and spreading Islamic extremism.
The conclusions were not new, echoing the private comments of government officials and independent experts for many months. But the stark declassified summary contrasted sharply with the more positive emphasis of President Bush and his top aides for years: that two-thirds of Al Qaeda’s leadership had been killed or captured; that the Iraq invasion would reduce the terrorist menace; and that the United States had its enemies “on the run,” as Mr. Bush has frequently put it.
After years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq and targeted killings in Yemen, Pakistan and elsewhere, the major threat to the United States has the same name and the same basic look as in 2001: Al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri, plotting attacks from mountain hide-outs near the Afghan-Pakistani border.
The headline on the intelligence estimate, said Daniel L. Byman, a former intelligence officer and the director of the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University, might just as well have been the same as on the now famous presidential brief of Aug. 6, 2001: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”
Seems like we're going Back to the Future here;
Although I would prefer Marty McFly in the Oval Office over George W. Bush....
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