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| Home Front: Politix |
| Kausfiles: Congressional Kabuki |
| 2007-02-21 |
| From the blog of Mickey Kaus, whom the OpinionJournal.com call "the most tough-minded liberal we know." The many embedded links ignored by lazy poster. Saturday, February 17, 2007 Do all those Democratic Senators running for President really want to vote to disapprove the surge even as it seems to be showing some initial, tentative, possibly illusory positive effects? Or, as Instapundit suggests, would a "no surge" vote put them in the position where a military success would be "politically ... dangerous?" I've previously argued that the wording of an anti-surge resolution would leave the Dems some escape routes--but what if the public doesn't pay attention to the wording? What if they just pay attention to the vote? What if it comes up in a debate: "And you opposed the increase in troops which is what finally brought relative peace to Baghdad..." How much better for these Democrats if a)they can placate the left by telling primary voters they support some sort of anti-surge resolution but b) they don't have to actually vote on a resolution because it never gets enough votes for cloture, so there's no actual vote that can be hung around their necks. That's win-win! And gee, that's what actually seems to have happened in the Senate. Funny thing. I smell Kabuki. If there's one thing United States Senators are good at it's engineering a stalemate that lets everyone posture in whatever way they think will help them. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #1 The World's Greatest Deliberative Body strikes again! |
| Posted by: Mike 2007-02-21 08:41 |