I Know What'll Stop Bush! A Nonbinding Resolution!

Sorry, fellas, but Dick Lugar is not prepared to do a damn thing to stop the occupation of Iraq. You know what he favored in an interview on NPR today? MORE NONBINDING RESOLUTIONS. Really.

Given what you said, the next time there is an opportunity for you to vote on the war, would you be a vote against the war?

I'm not going to have a vote for or against the war, at least I don't conceive of how this would occur. Most likely debate will occur once again when we take up money for the troops, for the prosecution of Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. I think the majority of the Senate, regardless of how they feel about the prosecution of the war, are not about to cut off funds that would jeopardize our troops in any way. That will be probably an overlying proposition.

Which sounds like you're saying that this is not going to change your vote.

Not with regard to support of the troops. I'm going to vote for the authorization and the appropriations. But there are many, many ways in which the Congress ultimately can influence even the president with regard to this war and we'll have to think through the most appropriate one.

Give me one — before we let you go — one thing that Congress can do.

Well, Congress could offer at minimum Sense of the Senate resolutions. They do not have the effect of law, but they clearly indicate how the country feels through its representatives. And that we really have not come to do simply because we have not really wanted to be ambiguous as a nation with regard to our foreign policy.

So why again is this guy getting lauded on talk shows and even liberal websites for "breaking with Bush"? He wants to do a bunch of Sense of the Senate resolutions, and he really and truly believes that the President and Fourthbranch care about public opinion:

If the president does not see things your way and continues on the same course, should the Senate and Congress in general force him to change?

I'm not certain how that occurs. I would just say that at some stage it will become apparent that the lack of support for the president not only in the Congress but with the public would command such a change. Even the president will understand that.

What an ignorant man. I mean ignorant in the sense that he's completely unaware of how Washington has worked the past 6 1/2 years, even while LIVING AND WORKING IN WASHINGTON. Dick Lugar is not going to lift a finger to bring any troops home. I suspect George Voinovich is the same way. They're still wedded to the "support the troops" nonsense and don't understand that defunding the war does not equal defunding the troops.

If this is the way they're talking now, whatever artificial happy talk comes from the guy that reported artificial happy talk back in 2004, David Petraeus, will even make them weaker on the issue. Face it, guys like Lugar and Warner and Voinovich are mush who have been rolled for years by BushCo. It's not changing anytime soon.