Recently Congress voted to deny regular Army extended leaves-of-absence. The vote was 56(yea, to extend) to 44 (nay, not to extend)*. After that, they convened to decide whether they would collectively condemn an advertisement in a privately owned newspaper- the Moveon.org ad condemning Petraeus.
More Democrats showed up to vote FOR the condemnation than showed up to vote FOR Webb’s amendment. As a matter of fact, more Repubs showed up too, but I don’t care about them.
Full list of Dems who backed the resolution after the jump.
Dems voting for the reso:
Baucus
Bayh
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Conrad
Dorgan
Feinstein
Johnson
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Leahy
Lieberman
Lincoln
McCaskill
Mikulski
Bill Nelson
Ben Nelson
Pryor
Salazar
Tester
Webb
[source]
**Lieberman is listed as a Dem here, when in fact he is an Independent (Bush lackey).**
Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd voted “No” and Barack Obama didn’t vote, though he was apparently available for an earlier vote on something not as public.
I can’t really say anything that hasn’t already been said a thousand times. There is something seriously wrong in our government when they think condemning a fucking ADVERTISEMENT is more important that deciding if our troops should get a little more time at home with their families between tours. It is even more appalling that the American public seemingly doesn’t give a shit.
* Apparently the Senators agreed that 60 votes would be needed to go forward with the amendment.
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9 Comments
Good post, and great observation!
Thanks, Joe. I hate that an ad gets more attention from even Congress than more important things. What the hell is happening to our country?
You took the words right out of my mouth. Frankly, I thought the ad was ill-conceived and poorly executed, but I didn’t see it’s intention as being any worse than that Swift-Boat bullshit or a dozen other swifties that the Republicans have pulled. And a priority? I think not.
This is a great example of why nothing of substance never gets done regardless of which party is in control.
They all disgust me: right, left, Dem, Rep, whatever. I guess Boxer didn’t bother showing up for this idiocy, so good for her.
Now I’ve read that Boxer tried to get her own condemnation passed — something about how we can never criticize anyone in uniform for anything bla de bla. Stupid.
This is an issue close to me. My cousin’s husband is in the Army and they’ve been fucking him over for a year. His enlistment was up back in April and they’ve extended him TWICE and not allowed him to leave. He’s now scheduled to get out next March, nearly a year after his enlistment was up. There’s a lot more, but don’t get me started. That man did his duty and fulfilled his obligation to his country and then he gets treated like shit. It ain’t right.
It’s the ones who chant the “Support Our Troops” mantra that treat them the worst, as sydwynd’s comment illustrates.
Many Democrat representatives seem so scared of being called ‘soft’ (on something called ‘terror’, usually) that they’ll go to absurd, logic-stretching lengths to avoid it, and (on the way) forget that they’re supposed to be representing the views of the people who elected them.
This is the type of bullshit we get for voting on old-school Dems. People that have their seat safe and sound are doing this instead of standing up for what’s right. I’m disgusted.