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Taking another step toward the Kingdom of Idiots, the Senate passed the Kyl-Lieberman amendment today. This amendment to the defense authorization bill has had much of its incendiary language removed but still refers to Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization:
The Kyl-Lieberman Iran amendment -- which ratchets up the confrontation with Iran by calling for the designation of its Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization responsible for killing U.S. troops -- just passed overwhelmingly, 76-22.
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The bill's backers had tried to mollify its critics by taking out some of its most incendiary language, particularly the idea that "it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies."
Kyl-Lieberman Iran Amendment Passes By Huge Margin
Officially, this thing is a resolution, which doesn't have the force of law, but it gives President Bush more rhetorical backing for his quest to get us involved in yet another war, this time with Iran.
Of the Democratic Presidential candidates, Senator Hillary Clinton voted for this piece of nonsense. Barack Obama missed the vote. Chris Dodd and Joe Biden voted against it. The guy who's coming in last among the serious candidates, and the guy who seems to have nothing to recommend him except his expertise in foreign policy, are the only ones who are willing to call this nonsense for what it is.
To say I'm not impressed with this field of candidates is an understatement. There may be some real leaders in the twenty-two Senators, including Dodd, who voted against this thing, but the ones who voted for it or abstained represent more of the same to me. Besides, two of the dissenters, Lugar and Hagel, are Republicans.
In fact, right now I'm really depressed by the possibilities seemingly presented in this election. Biden, despite his vote here, represents more of the same to me, as does Clinton. Obama is a wannabee crook, with an apparent tendency for narcissism. Edwards, Richardson, and Dodd can't seem to get their campaigns in gear, at least partly due to their own inability to manage a national campaign. I think anyone who's predicting that things will be much better six years from now thanks to our new President had better start getting his rationalizations in order now.
(h/t to SusanUnPC at NoQuarter, who covered this in the comments thread of that article.)
5 comments:
Cujo -I have so much disgust to spread around. But the basic fact is, this piece of dangerous and provocative war-mongering should NEVER have come to the floor.
Please please please - can we get rid of Harry Reid?? He is a disaster!
Sadly, yes. I don't trust Clinton or Obama any farther than I can throw them. Edwards and Dodd's hearts are in the right place, but they're not getting any traction.
And Richardson is the only serious candidate to pledge to get *all* our troops out of Iraq, but he's not so hot otherwise.
And Reid and Pelosi are *both* completely worthless, along with at least half their caucuses.
D'oh, that was me (Eli), must have forgotten to fill in my info...
We can blame Reid for allowing this to come to the floor, but I suspect that when three quarters of the Senators present vote in favor of a bill it's tough to prevent it. I blame Reid for many things, including at least two that I've written about, but Eli's right, there's a lot of worthlessness in those caucuses. Reid's where he is because one of those caucuses voted for him, and Pelosi's where she is because the other one voted for her. We can never forget that. That's the balance that has to change. Just electing a few more Democrats won't make a bit of difference.
Speaking of worthlessness, shoephone, did you notice which of our Senators voted for the amendment, and which one voted against? A bit of a reversal of roles, I'd say.
Cujo - Very much a reversal of roles! I don't get it. You probably saw that I wrote on Taylor's thread about my phone call with Murray's office. Maybe Cantwell is trying hard to make up for her awful co-sponsorship of the "Freedom and Support Act" from last year, which, basically, called for war with Iran if the spirit moved her.
These days, I don't understand anything the Dems are doing. No rhyme or reason to any of it.
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