Politics of surging

Over at Sweetness and Light Steve Gilbert shows us how the media has twisted the results of the vote over the spineless, half-assed resolution in the Senate yesterday. The Democrats were trying to craft a purely anti-Bush message without appearing to be spitting on the troops. Republicans finally summoned the intestinal fortitude required to fight on to the Ranger objective. But I’d much rather hear it from Charles Hurt and the Washington Times;

Senate Republicans yesterday blocked a resolution that would have condemned President Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq.
    On a 49-47 vote that largely followed partisan lines, Democrats fell 11 “ayes” short of the 60 needed to bring about a vote on the resolution, which is nonbinding but is widely viewed as a declaration of no confidence in the continued mission of the Iraq war and Mr. Bush’s handling of it.
    Among those who voted against last night’s motion was Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia, who wrote the resolution but joined other Republicans in opposition to holding a vote because the new Democratic majority is not allowing votes on other war resolutions.
    Only two Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Norm Coleman of Minnesota — backed voting on the resolution, and there was opposition from only two members of the Democratic caucus — independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and, in a parliamentary maneuver that gives him the right to bring the resolution back up for debate, Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

To Jonathan Weisman’s and Shailagh Murray’s credit (Washington Post), they at least got the headline right; GOP Stalls Debate on Troop Increase. And they got the debate right, too, even though Dingy Harry Reid got it wrong;

“What you just saw was Republicans giving the president the green light to escalate in Iraq,” Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said after the vote. Reid contended that Republicans “are trying to avoid a debate on this matter.”

Republicans said they have no desire to avoid a debate, asserting that they simply want a fair hearing on their proposals.

“We are ready and anxious to have this debate this week,” said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.). 

And while the Congress indulges in mental masturbation, the Iraqi government is asking us to hurry up;

Iraq’s Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi, also called on the United States to speed up its the deployment of extra troops, telling the British Broadcasting Corp. that he wanted the plan in place “as soon as possible, because people cannot tolerate in fact this sort of chaos and the killing around the clock.”

While Crotchety Old Bastard hears from his sources that the surge is already on.

Category: Media, Politics, Terror War