65-34

Wow. More lopsided than I thought it would be. The power of nightmares still strikes fear in the hearts of some Democrats.

Although, only 22 voted against the resolution for force in Iraq, so I dare say this is ... progress? But that's undercut by the fact that there is literally one endangered Democratic incumbent, Robert Menendez (who voted for the bill), up for re-election. I have to agree with Glenn Greenwald here in being absolutely astounded by the Democratic strategy on this one.

It's good to see that many Senate Democrats (32 out of 44) voted against this bill, but it's too little, too late. Many of them announced only for the first time today that they are opposing the bill (though, to be fair, many Democrats attributed their opposition to the recent changes made to the bill over the last few days, ones which were made even after the oh-so-noble McCain-Graham-Warner-White House "compromise" was announced).

But it is still difficult to understand the Democrats' strategy here. They failed to try to mount a filibuster because they feared being attacked as coddlers of the terrorists. But now they voted against the bill in large numbers, thereby ensuring those exact accusations will be made anyway -- and made loudly (the White House already started today). Yet they absented themselves the whole time from the debate (until they magically appeared today), spent the last several weeks only tepidly (at most) opposing the President's position, and thus lost the opportunity to defend and advocate the position they took today in any meaningful way. As a result, the Democrats took a position today (opposition to this bill) which they have not really defended until today.

They make this same mistake over and over. Isn't this exactly what happened when they sort-of-supported-but-sort-of-opposed the Iraq war resolution in 2002 because they were afraid of being depicted as soft on terrorism, only to then be successfully depicted as soft on terrorism because they were too afraid to forcefully defend their position? It's true that fewer Democrats voted for the President's policy this time around, but it's equally true that they found their voice only on the last day of the debate -- on the day of the vote -- after disappearing for weeks while they let John McCain "debate" for them.

If the Democrats started talking about this two weeks ago, not by parroting "even McCain doesn't like it" as if his opinion is somehow better than anyone else's (and it isn't, as this final bill plainly shows), if they made the eloquent statements back then, if they agitated about the loss of habeas corpus and the ability to delineate anyone an unlawful enemy combatant and putting the power of determination of torture in the hands of one person - I feel this could have been avoided. For their hand-wringing and cowardice, I hope they feel at least a little ashamed.

I will say this. Politically this could be a HUGE victory if the Party was willing to go toe-to-toe on it. You can absolutely expect "Sen. X voted to give rights to terrorists" commercials. You can absolutely expect that the GOP is confident there won't be any "Sen. X voted to put our troops in danger" or "Sen. X believes in torturing other human beings" or "Sen. X thinks innocent people should be plucked off the street, thrown in jail indefinitely without being allowed to challenge their detention."

But there ABSOLUTELY ought to be.

Of course, the leadership wasn't willing to go toe-to-toe on the vote, I don't think they'll be up to highlighting the vote in the campaign either. Maybe I'm wrong, and certainly they talked about "the politics" of the vote a whole lot today, but I doubt I am.

And these 12 gutless Democrats have no explanation:

Tom Carper (Del.)
Tim Johnson (S.D.)
Mary Landrieu (La.)
Frank Lautenberg (N.J.)
Bob Menendez (N.J)
Bill Nelson (Fla.)
Ben Nelson (Neb.)
Pryor (Ark.)
Jay Rockefeller (W. Va.)
Ken Salazar (Co.)
Debbie Stabenow (Mich.)

In addition to the gutless Joe Lieberman (Lieberman-CT), the moral scold who considered Bill Clinton's blowjob a stain on our moral character but tying a man down to a board and simulating drowning to evoke nothing more than a yawn.

America became a little less special place today.