Wrong Track?

I have been verbally attacked by a left-leaning hack named appalled that I used quote from Fox News in my last article. Even though this person had no proof of any sort that what Fox presented was not true, simply because it came from Fox caused appalled to ignore the facts – the Rick Santorum had announced the information about the WMDs, and that the information came from an US intelligence document. I suspect that appalled got no further than reading the headline, as that is what I expect from certain people.

Nevertheless, I will move on. Today’s news is from the Washington Post. It seems that those democrats who wish to set even loose timetables for the withdrawal from Iraq, including those who are against the war, were stomped in the Senate today. And the funny thing is, they were stomped with the help of their own party. According to an article by William Branigin at WaPo:

Senators first voted 86-13 to defeat a proposal , offered by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), to "require a redeployment" from Iraq starting immediately and to be substantially completed by July 1, 2007.

A second measure , advanced by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), drew support from more Democrats but still went down, 60-39. The nonbinding "sense of Congress" proposal urged President Bush to start pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq this year but did not set a withdrawal deadline.

The article goes on to attempt to cast blame solely on Republicans for defeating these measures, and in some sense that is true. But if you look at the numbers for the votes, it is abundantly clear that many, many centrist democrats agree with the Republicans.

The question that has to be asked in relation to these humiliating defeats is, why do so many Senators, on both sides of the aisle, feel that the troops must not be withdrawn according to a specific timetable? Could it be that they realize the US needs to stay until the job is done, and not leave the Iraqi’s before things have stabilized? Could it also be that fewer democrats actually subscribe to the current democratic leadership model that the war was not worth it? That it was based on a lie? Time will tell.

What does this say about Ned Lamont and his single-issue campaign? It seems that, the majority, or at least the plurality, of democratic Senators, agree with Joe Lieberman’s position. Lieberman’s vote today seems to reflect the way most Americans feel – at least as based on how their representatives voted. Seems simple enough.