The Serious People

Happy to see Jim Webb with an achievement, adding him to the rolls of Democrats who can use diplomacy to provide positive outcomes abroad. There is simply no antecedent on the Republican side. Who is the GOP daddy who can walk into Myanmar and get an American rescued? On the Democratic side you have Bill Richardson, Bill Clinton, Jim Webb - heck, even Jesse Jackson has pulled this off.

But Republicans are the adults, remember.

Gates v. The Military Industrial Complex... or Just Building a New One?

Defense Secretary Robert Gates delivered a budget recommendation that is shocking in its sweeping change, extremely unusual for the Pentagon's go-along, get-along approach to military contracting over the past 50 years or so. Robert Farley summarizes.

1. No more F-22s.
2. Replacement Air Force bomber delayed indefinitely.
3. Ballistic missile defense funding leans toward the Navy.
4. Aircraft carrier acquisition slowed, with the fleet eventually dropping to 10 carriers.
5. Next generation cruiser (CGX) delayed indefinitely.
6. VH-71 Presidential helicopter dead.
7. No more than three DDG-1000, and maybe only one.
8. Future Combat Systems funding slashed.

Farley says "This is why Bob Gates is still secretary of defense; Obama didn't believe that such cuts would be possible under a Democratic secretary." Perhaps so. And I agree with a lot of it; the F-22 is obselete in the context of current wars, for example. Cold War-era weapons systems have no place in the modern military. These cuts aren't THAT deep - missile defense still gets about $1 billion, for example - but they are significant.

But let's consider these "cuts" fully - they would not represent an overall scaling down of the Pentagon budget, but a lateral move into a forward-looking belief that the wars of the future will be counter-insurgencies and not wars of territory. I agree with Noah Schachtman that this makes a certain amount of sense, as major weapons programs are useless in such combat missions, while warm bodies are at a premium. I see this as an effort to SAVE the military budget, not slash it. While it makes sense to focus on funding the services needed for the wars we actually fight, in the final analysis the total budget still swamps the rest of the world many times over, troops are still based in 130 countries, and the Pentagon still dwarfs the rest of the budget on discretionary spending. It seems to me like this is trading one set of contractors for another, in a fashion. That's why those who represent the counter-insurgency faction of the military are thrilled.

There may be savings in the acquisitions and the contracting process in this request - I certainly hope so. And Gates' comment that "this is a reform budget" gives cause for optimism. In addition, with lots of this budget devoted to health care and veteran's services, perhaps engaging in less wars will drop costs substantially, in ways that could not be done while building giant weapons systems. But I'm not seeing much of a challenge to the idea that military budget must be outsized relative to the overall budget forever. And a perusal of the Congressional reaction to this recommendation is pretty telling:

"Secretary Gates has set out major changes to the defense budget based on changed assumptions about the wars our military must be prepared to fight. This is a good faith effort, and I appreciate the hard work and thoughtful consideration Secretary Gates and his staff put into these proposals.

"However, the buck stops with Congress, which has the critical Constitutional responsibility to decide whether to support these proposals. In the weeks ahead, my colleagues and I will carefully consider these proposals and look forward to working with Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen as we prepare the Fiscal Year 2010 defense authorization act."

In other words, nice budget, now move over while I mark it up.

Significantly, John McCain seems to be on the side of reform. Jim Webb said this: "The secretary's announcement today is highly unorthodox ... Secretary Gates has proposed funding increases, reductions, deferrals, and cancellations in numerous defense programs. In the absence of a more detailed description of the strategic underpinnings justifying his funding priorities--including an assessment of the level of risk posed to U.S. national security interests--it is difficult to evaluate them in isolation."

The weapons contractor industry will be quick to strike against this budget as well, and almost for that reason alone, I see value in Gates' product. But it's hard to see this as much more than a juggling of numbers in what remains too high a budget for war.

...Predictable blather from James Inhofe:

"I cannot believe what I heard today," Inhofe said in a statement. "President Obama is disarming America. Never before has a president so ravaged the military at a time of war."

Yes, "ravaged" them by eliminating weapons systems that aren't being used in this war. Sadly, such demagoguery is likely to work.

Stirrings Of Prison Reform

Look at that, a leading Democrats offers a bill on the otherwise unspeakable subject of prison reform, and contrary to popular expectation he is not forced to resign in disgrace!

Jim Webb stepped firmly on a political third rail last week when he introduced a bill to examine sweeping reforms to the criminal justice system. Yet he emerged unscathed, a sign to a political world frightened by crime and drug issues that the bar might not be electrified any more.

"After two [Joint Economic Committee] hearings and my symposium at George Mason Law Center, people from across the political and philosophical spectrum began to contact my staff," Webb told the Huffington Post. "I heard from Justice Kennedy of the Supreme Court, from prosecutors, judges, defense lawyers, former offenders, people in prison, and police on the street. All of them have told me that our system needs to be fixed, and that we need a holistic plan of how to solve it."

Webb's reform is backed by a coalition of liberals, conservatives and libertarians that couldn't have existed even a few years ago.

Webb's bill calls for the creation of a bipartisan commission to study the issue for 18 months and come back with concrete legislative recommendations.

Liberals, who for decades were labeled "soft on crime" by conservatives, crept out to embrace Webb's proposal. The bill was cosponsored by the entire Senate Democratic leadership and enthusiastically welcomed by prominent liberal bloggers. The blogosphere, dominated by younger activists, has been particularly open to calls for drug and criminal justice policy reform.

Support for the proposal has come in from the right, too. The Lynchburg News and Advance a conservative paper that publishes in the hometown of Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, weighed in favorably.

"America's prisons -- both federal and state -- are overflowing with prisoners. The United States has about 5 percent of the world's population; we have about 25 percent of the world's known prison population, Webb estimates," offered the editorial board. "Something, somewhere is seriously wrong."

It was jarring to see Webb's advocacy of major prison reform in my Sunday copy of PARADE Magazine, where Webb has published before. Yet he has unyielding and, as Glennzilla says, deeply courageous for tackling this issue which is such a blight on our national character. Something is seriously wrong with the broken prison system in California, as I've documented extensively. Decades of failure to lead, adherence to the "tough on crime" label and willingness to lock up non-violent offenders has led to some of the worst outcomes in the nation.

Most interesting about Webb's proposal is that he connected the prison crisis to our absolutely failed drug policy. After 30 years of interdiction and mass arrest, drug production is up and consumption is up, and the objectives of the so-called "war on drugs" have yet to be achieved in any substantive way. You cannot talk about prison reform without ending the characterization of drug addiction as a crime instead of a medical dependency requiring treatment.

I am hopeful that Webb has the desire to keep pushing this forward; obviously it will take years if not decades to get a sane prison policy in this country. But the need is so great.

Judge Invalidates Part of Prop. 9 - Victory For Prison Reformers

Once again, a judge has invalidated parts of a "tough on crime" ballot initiative. Earlier it was Jessica's Law, Prop. 83, which was ruled partially unconstitutional. Now Prop. 9, passed last year, has been found to have illegal provisions.

A key part of a victims' rights measure voters approved in November was blocked Thursday by a federal judge, who ruled that the state cannot restrict parole violators' right to state-provided legal counsel when considering whether to send them back to prison.

Senior Judge Lawrence K. Karlton of the U.S. District Court in Sacramento ruled against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state in issuing an injunction against part of Proposition 9, the measure known as the Victims' Bill of Rights Act of 2008: Marsy's Law.

The initiative dictates that the state provide legal counsel to parole violators only under certain circumstances, including when the case is unusually complex or when the parolee is indigent or has issues of mental competency.

The SacBee has more. I don't know how this could ever have even reached the ballot in the first place. And this is part of our insane parole policy, which even before this law was failing the state. 67% of all inmates sent to prison in 2007 were parole violators, often for technical violations. As I wrote then:

It is a financial and moral disaster that we are throwing men and women back in jail for parole violations at such an accelerated rate, far beyond any other state in the country. This is clearly a factor of the state's parole policy, which is too constrictive and too quick to return people to prison. It surely leads to the high recidivism rate for those who commit crimes multiple times - if they feel they can't escape the system once they're in it, they simply have no incentive to rehabilitate themselves [...]

We are diseased by the prison-industrial complex. Prison construction is good for the CCPOA and supposedly good for the economy but it's based on a flawed notion that all construction spending is valuable. In fact, prison construction, especially of the type so needless that bringing parole policy in line with the other 49 states in the union would practically eliminate the overcrowding crisis and rendering the need for more beds moot, crowds out other, more valuable building projects that have a tangible value to people's lives. We are violating the human rights of inmates and the Constitutional provision against cruel and unusual punishment, as well as stifling innovative public investment, because the parole officers have a powerful lobby and the Tough on Crime dementia has infested the minds of practically every legislator in the state for 30 years.

At the national level, we are finally seeing the seeds of a robust prison reform movement. Jim Webb and Arlen Specter have submitted a bill to completely overhaul the criminal justice system. The bill would commission a panel to review incarceration rates, sentencing policies, gang violence, prison administration and reintegration of offenders. This sounds like a small step, but considering that absolutely nothing has been done to stop the train of "tough on crime" insanity from rolling down the track in decades, it's significant. A copy of the legislation is here. Sen. Webb remarked:

"America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace," said Senator Webb. "With five percent of the world's population, our country houses twenty-five percent of the world's prison population. Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980. And four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals. We should be devoting precious law enforcement capabilities toward making our communities safer. Our neighborhoods are at risk from gang violence, including transnational gang violence [...]

"We are not protecting our citizens from the increasing danger of criminals who perpetrate violence and intimidation as a way of life, and we are locking up too many people who do not belong in jail," concluded Webb. "I believe that American ingenuity can discover better ways to deal with the problems of drugs and nonviolent criminal behavior while still minimizing violent crime and large-scale gang activity.

The bill has 14 co-sponsors, neither or whom are named Boxer or Feinstein. Tell them they should know better, with the prison crisis consuming more and more of the state budget and destroying the lives of nonviolent offenders.

Don't Get Too Lonely, Jim

Jim Webb has been a fairly disappointing conservative Democrat thus far in the US Senate, but his profile and life experience gives him an opportunity to take on "third rail" issues in ways that other politicians can't. I'm delighted that he's belatedly begun one of these crusades with the issue of prison reform.

This spring, Webb (D-Va.) plans to introduce legislation on a long-standing passion of his: reforming the U.S. prison system. Jails teem with young black men who later struggle to rejoin society, he says. Drug addicts and the mentally ill take up cells that would be better used for violent criminals. And politicians have failed to address this costly problem for fear of being labeled "soft on crime."

It is a gamble for Webb, a fiery and cerebral Democrat from a staunchly law-and-order state. Virginia abolished parole in 1995, and it trails only Texas in the number of people it has executed. Moreover, as the country struggles with two wars overseas and an ailing economy, overflowing prisons are the last thing on many lawmakers' minds.

But Webb has never been one to rely on polls or political indicators to guide his way. He seems instead to charge ahead on projects that he has decided are worthy of his time, regardless of how they play -- or even whether they represent the priorities of the state he represents.

There is no more easily demagogued issue in America that prison reform. Conservatives find it unacceptable that we should do anything other than warehouse prisoners for as long as humanly possible (unless they are Republican officeholders, that is), and will assail anyone with a contrary view as being insufficiently "tough on crime." As a result, the prison-industrial complex is one of the fastest-growing in the nation, with overcrowding persisting throughout the country and skyrocketing costs of incarceration. We have 2.3 million Americans in jail, a higher percentage than any country on Earth, and a shocking amount of them are inside for violating parole or a low-level drug offense, when tax dollars could be spent much better treating and rehabilitating them. Not to mention that longer sentences and overcrowding hamper what meager rehab programs exist, sending recidivism rates soaring and turning jails into colleges for harder crime. And any thought given to the rights and well-being of the prisoner is met with derision. Why, who cares if there's arsenic in their drinking water, they should have thought about that before they broke the law!

The drinking water pumped from two wells at Kern Valley State Prison contained arsenic, a known cause of cancer, in amounts far higher than a federal safety standard soon to take effect.

Yet today, nearly three years after missing the government's deadline to reduce the arsenic levels, the state has no concrete plans or funding to do so. Officials spent $629,000 to design a filtration system and then decided not to build it, while neglecting to inform staff and inmates that they were consuming contaminated water.

After the prison finally posted notices last April on orders from the state Department of Public Health, the inmates continued drinking the water, under protest.

"We have no choice," said Larry Tillman, 38, who was serving time for burglary. "We should at the very least receive bottled water, or truck in water from another city."

You're a terrorist-coddler if you try to raise this issue.

Webb's ideas are pretty solid:

Webb aims much of his criticism at enforcement efforts that he says too often target low-level drug offenders and parole violators, rather than those who perpetrate violence, such as gang members. He also blames policies that strip felons of citizenship rights and can hinder their chances of finding a job after release. He says he believes society can be made safer while making the system more humane and cost-effective.

Webb isn't known to shy from a fight. He said this spring that he'll introduce legislation that creates a national panel to recommend ways to overhaul the criminal justice system [...] Webb said, the United States could learn from the Japanese system. In his book, "A Time to Fight," he wrote that the Japanese focused less on retribution. Sentences were short, and inmates often left prison with marketable job skills. Ironically, he said, the system was modeled on philosophies pioneered by Americans, who he says have since lost their way on the matter.

Webb believes he can guide the nation back. "Contrary to so much of today's political rhetoric," he wrote, "to do so would be an act not of weakness but of strength."

Though I don't agree with his framing of it as about "locking up the right people instead of the wrong people," Webb deserves credit for carrying this issue. However, I doubt he'll find many partners. Right now it's too politically volatile at the national level to make the completely sound point that trapping millions of citizens in a cycle of incarceration and addiction harms our economy as much as our crime rate. In the states there are many groundbreaking programs that return the corrections system to what should be its core role of rehabilitation and job training and returning prisoners back to civil society with survival skills. It's cheaper in the long run and it reduces the explosion of corrections in state budgets. But at the national level, I guess it's not very serious to talk about prison reform.

I've asked the Obama transition team about their perspective on criminal justice and prison reform at their "Open for Questions" virtual town hall. I'll let you know if I get a response.

Food Fight Over The GI Bill

Old Man McCain decided to yell at a cloud today. See, he isn't allowed to vote on legislation while there's money to be raised on the campaign trail, so he wasn't allowed to give his opinion that lucky duckie Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are getting too many education benefits. But Barack Obama did on the Senate floor, saying that McCain's opposition to the Webb-Hagel GI Bill is unconscionable, and in response, McCain got really ornery, on the "how dare you disagree with me on veteran's affairs policy" tip:

"It is typical, but no less offensive that Senator Obama uses the Senate floor to take cheap shots at an opponent and easy advantage of an issue he has less than zero understanding of. Let me say first in response to Senator Obama, running for President is different than serving as President. The office comes with responsibilities so serious that the occupant can't always take the politically easy route without hurting the country he is sworn to defend. Unlike Senator Obama, my admiration, respect and deep gratitude for America's veterans is something more than a convenient campaign pledge. I think I have earned the right to make that claim.

"I know that my friend and fellow veteran, Senator Jim Webb, an honorable man who takes his responsibility to veterans very seriously, has offered legislation with very generous benefits. I respect and admire his position, and I would never suggest that he has anything other than the best of intentions to honor the service of deserving veterans. Both Senator Webb and I are united in our deep appreciation for the men and women who risk their lives so that the rest of us may be secure in our freedom. And I take a backseat to no one in my affection, respect and devotion to veterans. And I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did.

See, only members of the military have earned the right to give members of the military education benefits.

They used this "he didn't serve his country" crap against Bill Clinton, too, and it didn't work. Obama hit back pretty forcefully.

"I am proud to stand with Senator Webb and a bipartisan coalition to give our veterans the support and opportunity they deserve. It's disappointing that Senator McCain and his campaign used this issue to launch yet another lengthy personal, political attack instead of debating an honest policy difference. He should know that this is not about John McCain or Barack Obama -- it's about giving our veterans a real chance to afford four years of college without harming retention. Senator Webb's bipartisan bill will do this, and the bill that John McCain supports would not. These endless diatribes and schoolyard taunts from the McCain campaign do nothing to advance the debate about what matters to the American people."

It's just not rational for McCain to claim some kind of support for the troops while essentially saying that we can't let them leave because there wouldn't be enough people willing to fight in multiple wars that he'll authorize. Go ahead and keep talking about it. I'd LOVE to have this debate play out in public.

...also, John Cornyn, who voted against the bill today, decided to call those who want to honor veterans' service "the antiwar crowd." Man, that's the wrong way to go with this. Cornyn is in deep trouble in November.

GI Bill Passes Senate

By a pretty robust 75-22 count, as well. Of course, it's folded into the broader war funding bill, which extends the blank check all the way to the next President, so it's a bittersweet day. Russ Feingold is absolutely right.

“I am deeply disappointed that Congress is considering another Iraq spending bill that does nothing to end the war in Iraq,” Feingold said. “There’s a lot of tough talk from Democrats and even some Republicans about ending the war but not enough real action to do so. Democrats took control of Congress last year pledging to work to bring an end to the war. But now, five years into this war, with 4,000 Americans killed, over 30,000 wounded, and over $10 billion per month being spent in Iraq, we’re actually moving backwards in our goal to end the war. This is a retreat from responsibility.”

That's true. But we also have a responsibility to our veterans to honor their service, and that's what the Webb GI Bill provides. Here's the roll call, and there are a few dead-enders who don't subscribe to that belief, and their vote will be highlighted for years to come. On the other hand, several endangered Republicans got the message and voted to give vets the education benefits they deserve.

John McCain was fulfilling his duty as a non-voting member of the Senate and campaigned out of town. What's interesting is that he tried to blow this whole thing up by offering a crappy "compromise" and completely lost the bulk of his party. What fine leadership!

UPDATE: Are people really going to fall for this again?

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in the war in Iraq, said that he expects this fall to recommend additional cuts in U.S. troop levels there.

He said that he plans to make an assessment by September, when he would move to take over the U.S. Central Command, if he is confirmed for that position, as is expected.

"My sense is I will be able to make a recommendation at that time for further reductions," Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee today in a hearing to confirm him for the Centcom post. He said he didn't know how large those cuts might be.

Yes, just wait until September again. Why are you people so impatient? Five and 1/2 years is a perfectly respectable time to downshift into a commitment of 100,000-plus troops occupying a foreign country.

Anyone who believes this will be at all meaningful and not just a stunt is out of their minds. This has been a constant refrain since the beginning of the war.

Petraeus and Odierno Off Message In The Senate

A Man Called Petraeus is back in Washington today, for his Senate confirmation hearings to be the head of Centcom. Gen. Odierno is there as well, looking to be confirmed as Petraeus' successor in Iraq. And they've both had some interesting things to say.

First, Petraeus got the same question Ryan Crocker got from Joe Biden in April about the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area. And he had the same answer.

Jack Reed finally brings up the gorilla in the room. He asks Petraeus if he agrees with the intelligence community and Chairman Mullen's assessment that the next terrorist attack on the United States would most likely come from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area.

Petraeus says YES.

And Reed naturally asks, then why does the campaign plan focus on Iraq not Afghanistan and Pakistan? Reed also asks how Petraeus would plan to actually bring more troops into that area, since they're all in Iraq.

Petraeus, nominated to Centcom, cannot hide behind his "I'm just a simple country general focused on Iraq" shtick, but really the policymakers at the White House should be the ones answering this question. Especially since the new Pakistani government is doing nothing to stop cross-border raids in Afghanistan, and has signed another peace deal with Taliban elements in the Swat Valley. This makes sense for the Pakistanis in a self-interested sense, but if you do believe that Afghanistan is waning and a safe haven for terrorist plotters is a bad thing, it's something we should probably devote some attention to.

Later, Jim Webb backed Raymond Odierno into a corner:

Webb tells Odierno that a key part of strategizing is to "be able to articulate clearly what the endpoint of that strategy is." So: What's the endgame, "in military terms"?

Odierno: "A self-reliant government that is stable, a government that will contribute inside of the regional context and the international context. Obviously, that means they need a professional security force... Obviously, a place that will not allow a safe haven for terrorists or extremists that threaten region... or the United States. ... An economic engine that [provides for] the continued improvement of the Iraqi people. ... From a military perspective, the ability to secure themselves, and do it in such a way that allows the government to continue to grow. ... and we will continue to do less and less." [...]

But what's the endpoint? Say U.S. meets all these conditions. Should there be a continued U.S. presence there? "That's a discussion... for policy." Webb won't let it go! What do you think, Gen. Odierno? Will there be a need for the U.S. military in Iraq if those conditions are met? "I do not." Finally.

Now that's how an adult asks a question.

Indeed, and it's really the entire point about Iraq. We can continue to put the country on lockdown and rule under the methods of an occupation, but it doesn't get us to that desired end-state. And if we pull back, and let the Iraqis handle things, we have no reason for being there. Webb finally got Odierno to admit that.

But the most interesting bit from the Petraeus hearings happened before them, when in written answers to the Senate Armed Services Committee he showed himself to be an un-American appeaser of the Chamberlain school:

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, President Bush's nominee to lead U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, supports continued U.S. engagement with international and regional partners to find the right mix of diplomatic, economic and military leverage to address the challenges posed by Iran.

In written answers to questions posed by the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he will testify today, Petraeus said the possibility of military action against Iran should be retained as a "last resort." But he said the United States "should make every effort to engage by use of the whole of government, developing further leverage rather than simply targeting discrete threats."

Petraeus's views echoed those expressed by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who this month said that talks with Iran could be useful if the right combination of incentives and pressures could be developed.

There's every reason to believe that Tehran wants talks like this, too.

This is so obvious that you can't help but go off the Bush-McCain reservation. Diplomacy is not just a tool in the shed along with bombers and tanks, it's the most powerful tool. In the Muslim world, the growing trend is that as terrorist attacks increase, terrorism grows less popular. And the flip side is also true; as American military attacks increase, that decrease in support for terrorism shoots back up as it can be recast as resistance. Without public support for terrorism it can be choked off, therefore public diplomacy becomes a much greater way to reach the desired result than bombings which inflame the population. Give terrorists the rope to hang themselves, in other words, by building a broad coalition against them. And Iran can be a player on that stage.

Obama Jumps On The GI Bill Issue

The Webb GI Bill could come up for a vote this week, and it's putting Republicans in a tough spot. The least we can do for all the veterans we've created during the Bush Administration is give them a full ride to the public university of their choice. It's most definitely part of the cost of war. The Pentagon and some Republicans consider it too expensive. How is a veteran supposed to feel when they her that their service is not worth a big enough dollar amount to educate them?

The dodge that John McCain and others are using is that this will reduce the size of the volunteer army because vets will go scurrying to use the benefits instead of making the military a career. It's an extension of the "welfare queen" argument. Because Republicans are so greedy, they can't imagine not taking advantage of an opportunity immediately. But there's a 15-year time horizon in the bill to use the benefits, enough of a spread to manage that concern. Also, typically the way the world works is that incentives and benefits ENCOURAGE people to join, as the American Legion understands.

“This bill would encourage young men and women to join the military,” [National Commander Marty] Conatser said. “As far as retention goes, the CBO estimates that a simple $8,000 bonus to personnel at their first enlistment point would increase reenlistments by 2 percentage points. Another way to encourage mid-level servicemembers to stay in the military is to transfer GI Bill benefits to family members so the servicemember can remain in the military and still benefit from the program.”

This debate has now jumped into the Presidential race. John McCain, a product of the GI Bill who attended the Naval Academy at taxpayer expense, has tried to weasel out of the bill by endorsing a far more modest version. This puts him on the wrong side of the public (look at all of those op-eds), and in the crosshairs of Barack Obama, who hit McCain hard on this yesterday.

And when our loved ones do come home, it is time for the United States of America to offer this generation of returning heroes the same thanks we offered that earlier, Greatest Generation – by giving every veteran the same opportunity that my grandfather had under the GI Bill.

There is no reason we shouldn’t pass the 21st Century GI Bill that is being debated in Congress right now. It was introduced by my friend Senator Jim Webb, a Marine who served as Navy Secretary under President Ronald Reagan.. His plan has widespread support from Republicans and Democrats. It would provide every returning veteran with a real chance to afford a college education, and it would not harm retention.

I have great respect for John McCain’s service to this country and I know he loves it dearly and honors those who serve. But he is one of the few Senators of either party who oppose this bill because he thinks it’s too generous. I couldn’t disagree more. At a time when the skyrocketing cost of tuition is pricing thousands of Americans out of a college education, we should be doing everything we can to give the men and women who have risked their lives for this country the chance to pursue the American Dream.

Now, this of course is being packaged with continued war funding into the next Presidency, so it's a bitter pill. But in theory, the men and women serving in Iraq and elsewhere deserve these benefits. McCain Republicans are denying them. It's a pretty simple construction.

Bush Dogs Dig War, Can't Stand Veterans

So the House was supposed to vote on war funding today, which I didn't exactly support. What I did support was extending unemployment insurance and veteran's benefits in a new GI Bill, and since the Democrats were so cowardly about giving a blank check to the President on Iraq, they might as well get something in return, and anyway vet benefits ought to be part of military expenditures anyway. But it turns out the Bush Dogs want that blank check for war to be blank.

A small group of fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats is threatening to block the emergency war spending bill over a program for veterans’ benefits not offset with tax hikes or spending cuts.

Because of that problem, and the efforts by House Republicans to stall floor action with procedural motions, the vote on the carefully crafted supplemental measure could be delayed until Friday or next week.

“Some of us oppose creating a new entitlement program in an emergency spending bill, whether it’s butchers, bakers or candlestick-makers,” said Rep. John Tanner (D-Tenn.), a founding member of the Blue Dog Coalition who serves on the House leadership team as a deputy whip.

The so-called GI Bill of Rights, authored by Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), would give veterans money for college and cost $720 million in its first two years. But critics say that could grow to billions in future years.

Bush Dogs want fiscal responsibility while giving the President $200 billion dollars OFF THE BOOKS for an unnecessary war. Their hard fiscal line softens in the face of American imperialist adventures.

According to CongressDaily the Bush Dogs are also whining because one of their members, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, didn't get HER GI Bill to the floor in favor of Jim Webb's. So this is about turf wars, too.

The Pentagon has said that the new GI Bill would be bad because it would "reward" soldiers who haven't served six years, because apparently 5 years in combat zones isn't enough of a commitment to service. But what the Bush Dogs are saying is worse. They're hiding behind a twisted notion of fiscal responsibility to deny veterans the honors they deserve no matter how long their service. And this is because they're Bush's biggest allies in Congress, desiring only to please him by offering a clean bill funding the Iraq debacle well into the future.

A Question of Character

Hey, look at this: John McCain is lying about his role in creating public policy! Doesn't that sound to you like a character issue?

An Arizona Republican, McCain has all but locked up the Republican presidential nomination and is preparing for a fall campaign in which his support of the Iraq war is sure to be a major issue. Yet the former Navy pilot and Vietnam POW makes himself a target by refusing to endorse Webb’s new GI education bill and instead signing on to a Republican alternative that focuses more on career soldiers than on the great majority who leave after their first four years.

Undaunted, Webb, who was a Marine infantry officer in Vietnam, is closing in on the bipartisan support needed to overcome procedural hurdles in the Senate, where the cost of his package — estimated now at about $52 billion over 10 years — is sure to be an issue. But McCain’s support would seal the deal like nothing else, and the new Republican bill, together with a letter of opposition Tuesday from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, threatens to peel off support before the Democrat gets to the crucial threshold of 60 votes.

“There are fundamental differences,” McCain told Politico. “He creates a new bureaucracy and new rules. His bill offers the same benefits whether you stay three years or longer. We want to have a sliding scale to increase retention. I haven’t been in Washington, but my staff there said that his has not been eager to negotiate.”

“He’s so full of it,” Webb said in response. “I have personally talked to John three times. I made a personal call to [McCain aide] Mark Salter months ago asking that they look at this.”

Put aside for a moment the fact that McCain's bill would basically hold soldiers hostage inside the military the same way employees are held hostage at their jobs for health care benefits. Put aside that the goal of the McCain bill is not honoring the service of our veterans but making sure enough people are locked into the military to fight all the extra wars he wants to wage. And put aside that the current benefit levels, which McCain's bill seeks to for the most part freeze, are insufficient to the task of covering the cost of higher education.

This is McCain's shtick. He looks to control the stakes of bipartisanship and define it as "everyone agree with me," and he'll lie about your intentions if you dare to defy him. Webb's GI Bill has 57 co-sponsors, pressure is being applied (good on Alaska Senate candidate Mark Begich to trap Ted Stevens on this), and then McCain barrels in, offers his own competing measure and threatens to blow up the whole deal, all because he didn't come up with it himself in the first place.

Now, aren't those VALUES we could all use as a guide to making our choice in November? The fact that McCain puts his ego above the treatment of veterans is one thing, but the idea that he has no faithfulness to the truth and will take credit and impute bad motives at the drop of a hat, all in the name of receiving glory for himself - aren't those QUALITIES that we should consider when making a choice for President?

Or should we just send him to a bowling alley and see how he does, instead?

...oh yeah, and where is McCain on the horrendous condition of our stateside military barracks like the one at Fort Bragg? Has anyone bothered to ask him? Or any of the Democratic candidates? This happened in the upcoming primary state of North Carolina, fercryinoutloud!

x + y/2 = McCain

So a bipartisan group of Senators led by Jim Webb and Chuck Hagel presented a new GI bill for Afghanistan and Iraq veterans. They achieved enough consensus on it that 57 Senators signed on, which in this Congress is fairly rare. But John McCain wasn't in on the bipartisanship, so he had to build his own GI Bill which rewards career military officers (like he was) instead of the young infantrymen who actually need the help. Brandon Friedman and the gang at VetVoice see through this. This is a good run-down.

The Republican bill would increase monthly GI Bill payments for active duty servicemembers from $1,100 to $1,500 as well as provide a yearly $500 book stipend (S22 would provide a $1,000 yearly book stipend). The Republican bill would also allow the servicemember to transfer up to 18 months of benefits to his or her spouse or child after 6 years of service or 36 months of benefits after 12 years of service, something that S22 lacks. Lastly, the bill makes military academy and ROTC graduates eligible for these benefits if they serve an additional five years beyond their initial service obligation.

Clearly the goal of the Republican bill is to provide enhanced benefits for servicemembers who make a career out of the military.

Senator Webb's bill, S22, however, seeks to bring the modern GI Bill in line with the spirit of previous GI Bills by expanding benefits for veterans regardless of whether they choose to stay in after their initial service obligation. Thus, unlike the Republican version, there are no "strings attached" to the GI Bill expansion of benefits. It also tries to ensure that these veterans have the means to actually USE these benefits--something the majority of contemporary veterans cannot do because tuition costs generally exceed GI Bill payments and there is no housing assistance.

Simply put, McCain's bill seeks to lock people into the military so that the pool of soldiers needed for his continued wars remains constant.

But this of course is McCain's modus operandi - creating a "bipartisan solution" that appears to address the legislative problem while having no teeth. It's "bipartisanship" on his terms, with his conservative beliefs intact. In other words, there's nothing particularly bipartisan about it at all. No wonder his media spinners lap it up.

Why Does Bush Hate The Troops?

Last year Jim Webb and others offered the dwell time amendment to the defense appropriations bill and the emergency supplemental, calling for the Defense Department to allow a soldier as much time at home as he has in the field. The Administration called it craven, Republicans termed it a "slow-bleed" strategy and everybody questioned everybody's patriotism.

Bush just agreed to it today.

President Bush plans to announce today that he will cut Army combat tours in Iraq from 15 months to 12 months, returning rotations to where they were before last year's troop buildup in an effort to alleviate the tremendous stress on the military, administration officials said.

The move is in response to intense pressure from service commanders who have expressed anxiety about the toll of long deployments on their soldiers and, more broadly, about the U.S. military's ability to confront unanticipated threats. Bush will announce the decision during a national speech, in which aides said he will also embrace Army Gen. David H. Petraeus's plan to indefinitely suspend a drawdown of forces.

They can suspend the drawdown, or pause, as per the current parlance, but without the 15-month tours they cannot draw back up if needed. And so the President is basically acknowledging the endgame in Iraq. And don't let him tell you that troop decisions will be made based on conditions on the ground. He just consigned the US to a smaller force in Iraq regardless of the conditions.

Now, John McCain's refusal to rule out pre-emptive war means that he would have to increase tours of duty back to 15 months and/or dramatically increase the size of the Army, and the only way to do that is through a draft. The logical outcome of McCain's foreign policy is the end of the all-volunteer Army. So, let the buyer beware.

With respect to Iraq, this really does spell the end and I think Bush must have been given the message that it's basically over. When you see someone like Kenneth Pollack basically admit that a responsible withdrawal is demanded, you know that there's actually this sea change that very few people are noticing out in the field. The frustration on the faces of Congressmembers during the Petraeus/Crocker hearings showed that they've basically had it. Every step forward is accompanied by two steps back, and in the process we are losing lives and diverting resources from the real national security challenges. You're going to see this manifest itself first in the pullback of money from the war. Here's some more of the Post article.

Democrats moved to press Bush on another front, linking the sagging U.S. economy to escalating war costs. On a day when oil hit $112 a barrel for the first time, lawmakers said that energy-rich Iraq should be footing more of its own bills. "We've put about $45 billion into Iraq's reconstruction . . . and they have not spent their own resources," said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.). "They have got to have some skin in the game."

Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) met yesterday to craft a bipartisan bill to make Iraq take on a greater share of the financial burden. Under their plan, any future U.S. money for reconstruction would take the form of a loan to be repaid, and Baghdad would have to pay for fuel used by U.S. troops and for the training of its own security forces, and make payments to the predominantly Sunni fighters in the Awakening movement taking on al-Qaeda.

"It's time, in fact long past time, the Iraqis start bearing a larger portion of the costs for this war," Collins said. Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) echoed the sentiment. "Doesn't it just make sense that record-high gas prices pay for the reconstruction of Iraq, rather than the American taxpayer?" he asked.

This issue is resonant and I think it will click with voters. So money will come out, the troops will remain for another year because nobody in the Congress has the balls to fully fund withdrawal and nothing else. However, dwell time will return to balance (albeit with a waiting period just long enough to keep up the pace of deployments until Bush leaves office), the money burden will shift more and more to the Iraqis, and there will absolutely be an accountability moment on the war in November, with responsible withdrawal on the table. And the people are on the side of getting out. If Republicans want to bet on the electorate's resolve to stay inside Iraq with no endgame strategy and no plan for even defining success, go ahead. We're see you at the Inaugural ball - before we go inside.

Democrats Fight At The Iraq Hearings

As the Petraeus/Crocker hearings shift to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden is doing a great job, hammering the President's non-strategy on Iraq and the costs to prestige, operational capacity, the fight against terrorism, lives and treasure. Actually, several Democrats have had fine performances today, and I wanted to highlight some of them from the Armed Services Committee session.

• Bill Nelson (D-FL) gets at the heart of the "political reconciliation" question, hitting the familiar tactic that we've seen by the Administration of highlighting initial votes passing pieces of legislation without mentioning that they never get signed into law or implemented. Worse, laws like the de-Baathification statute are being used to target Sunnis and increase sectarian tensions.

"It is with a great deal of respect and deference to you," Nelson said, that he pressed the issue: the point of the surge was to create political reconciliation. "Has political reconciliation happened?"

Petraeus: "As the Ambassador laid out, there has been agreement among different political parties on a number of pieces of important reconciliation laws, if you will, that represent reconciliation... [laws on] de-Ba'athification, a provincial powers law, a pensions reform bill..."

But have the laws been implemented?

Petraeus: I believe the pensions law is in the process of being implemented. De-Ba'athification --"

Nelson wondered: To the extent of bringing about political reconciliation "that is the goal in the first place?"

Petraeus kicked it over to Crocker.

This is a common "kick-the-can" tactic to prove some sort of ephemeral success of the surge, and I'm glad Nelson called it out.

• Claire McCaskill (D-MO) bluntly stated that Sadr won the battle for Basra, which is obviously true despite Ryan Crocker's spinning. This was buttressed by today's events, as the religious leadership in the country lined up behind Sadr, which is a complete thumb in the eye of Maliki and his call for the Mahdi Army to be disbanded.

• Evan Byah (D-IN) - yes, Evan frickin' Bayh - did a nice job of discussing the intelligence community's assessment that our presence in Iraq is actually creating more terrorists than we are defeating there. And there was this great moment:

He also wins huge plaudits from me for mentioning, in response to something Ambassador Crocker said, that "I would only caution us not to take our marching orders from Osama bin Laden."

Exactly so. It's really lunatic of hawks to keep citing OBL's desire to fight us in Iraq as a reason for us to fight him in Iraq. He likes the fight in Iraq because it's favorable terrain for his cause and his propaganda and lets him pose as the defender of the Arab world against American domination. They're suggesting we act like bulls running at the toreador's cape.

• I mentioned Jack Reed's (D-RI) questioning before, but he pressed Ambassador Crocker on a central point - that Iran is supporting all kinds of groups in Iraq, not just those "special groups" but also our "friends" in Maliki's Army like the Badr Brigade and the Dawa Party.

• Jim Webb noted as a side comment that the Anbar Awakening began well before the surge. That's something that always gets lost.

• Even Huckleberry Graham missed a layup, asking Gen. Petraeus if we could get a brigade a month out of Iraq, expecting the answer no, and Petraeus replied "It clearly would depend on the conditions at that time... that might be doable." Whoops.

I don't expect that these key facets of the crumbling of the Bush Iraq strategy will get much notice - that Petraeus and Crocker have to answer these questions instead of the policymaker-in-chief ensures that he is shielded from the consequences of his actions. But it's important to note that many Democrats are fighting to get out the truth about Iraq, and to change the debate from whether or not "we're winning" and whether our continued presence in Iraq makes sense for our economic and national security.

John McCain Hates Our Troops

Via Digby, I can't tell whether this is a campaign ad for John McCain or an epsiode of "Why We Fight":



War is a force that gives us meaning.

It's interesting that McCain frames war as something soldiers engage in for the sake of their compatriots, not for any cause or ethos or any reason at all. Which makes sense, since McCain strongly believes in the nobility and bravery of the American soldier but doesn't believe in giving them an education.



S.22 and H.R.2702 would update the GI Bill for the 21st century and reward those who do fight for causes in our name with the world-class education they deserve. John McCain doesn't support it. He says that he hasn't examined it. The truth is that he doesn't want to get in trouble with his anti-public education conservative base who think that soldiers who protect them are some kind of welfare queens.

McSame cannot credibly talk about supporting the troops. He rejects providing them with anything once they return home. He thinks they're automatons, sausage, killing machines. Nothing else.

Iran Update

The President went on Arab satellite TV and denied that the US was about to attack Iran:

"I have said that if they suspend their nuclear program, we will be at the table," Bush said, according to a transcript of the interview the White House released on Friday. "But they have so far refused to do that."

Bush brushed off as "gossip" reports in the Arab press that he has issued orders to senior U.S. military officials to prepare for an attack on Iran at the end of January or in February.

"I would call that empty propaganda," Bush said. "Evidently, there's a lot of gossip in the parts of the country - world that try to scare people about me personally or my country or what we stand for. And that kind of gossip is just what it is. It's gossip. It's baseless gossip."

Somehow, I'm not getting the believing vibe off of him. On the one hand, it's true that, as the Iranian foreign minister said, that the US is too tied up in foreign entanglements to get involved in committing ground troops to Iran. It's also true that Iraq would be totally against any military strikes on its neighbor.

On the other hand, the neocons who are desperate to change the subject on Iraq don't care about the sensitivities of the Iraqis or the lack of manpower. They still believe in this fantasy that you can get in and out, make precision strikes that hit nuclear facilities and nothing else, provoke no radioactive accidents, and cause no retaliation. It's something less than a real-world view.

Robert Byrd is absolutely right, just as he was when he spoke in that empty chamber before the war with Iraq:

It is deeply troubling to see the U.S. Senate joining the chest-pounding and saber-rattling of the Bush administration. I am no apologist for the Iranian regime, anymore than I was for Saddam Hussein, but I fear that we may become entangled in another bloody quagmire. We have been down this path before. We have seen all too clearly where it leads.

The Senate has refused to learn the lessons of history. And just maybe, they just want the war as much as the neocons:

When I asked Hersh who wants to bomb Iran, he said, "Ironically there is a lot of pressure coming from Democrats. Hillary Clinton, Obama, and Edwards have all said we cannot have a nuclear-armed Iran. Clearly the pressure from Democrats is a reflection of - we might as well say it - Israeli and Jewish input." He added the obvious: "a lot of money comes to the Democratic campaigns" from Jewish contributors.

But while Democrats argue that we must "do something" about an Iranian nuclear threat, Hersh says the White House has concluded their own effort to convince Americans that Iran poses an imminent threat has "failed." Apparently the public that bought the story of WMD in Iraq is now singing the classic Who song, "Won't Get Fooled Again."

I don't know if the front-runners are at all committed to military action, but they are cautious to appear "sensible" to the foreign policy community, in other words completely un-sensible. And while Hillary has signed on to Jim Webb's bill blocking funding for military action against Iran, she also supported the Kyl-Lieberman bill giving Bush a back door to attack. And it concerns me greatly that Wes Clark is indrectly endorsing Kyl-Lieberman because he can't criticize the candidate he endorsed:

Last week, Hillary voted for a non-binding resolution that designates the odious Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization in order to strengthen our diplomatic hand. (emphasis mine) On Monday, she joined Senator Jim Webb in co-sponsoring a bill that would prohibit the use of funds for military action in Iran without specific authorization by Congress.

I support Hillary in both these votes. She is committed to ending the unilateralism of the Bush-Cheney administration. She is a strong supporter of direct nuclear talks with Iran, because she believes that direct dialogue with our adversaries is a sign of strength and confidence, and a prerequisite to achieving America's goals and objectives.

What the...

Is the guy who created StopIranWar.com really falling for the "strengthening our diplomatic hand" nonsense?

This concerns me more than ever that, as Byrd said, we are sleepwalking into another conflict.

Blackwater Update

This of course has nothing to do with efforts to expel them from Iraq, because like the United States, they're never leaving. But more information is starting to seep out about the deadly shooting incident that they allege was the result of hostile fire. The State Department released a report that buttressed that claim, although it's a double-edged sword, because, you know, I thought we were making progress in Iraq:

The initial U.S. Embassy report on a Sept. 16 shooting incident in Baghdad involving Blackwater USA, a private security firm, depicts an afternoon of mayhem that included a car bomb, a shootout in a crowded traffic circle and an armed standoff between Blackwater guards and Iraqi security forces before the U.S. military intervened.

The two-page report, described by a State Department official as a "first blush" account from the scene, raises new questions about what transpired in the intersection. According to the report, the events that led to the shooting involved three Blackwater units. One of them was ambushed near the traffic circle and returned fire before fleeing the scene, the report said. Another unit that went to the intersection was then surrounded by Iraqis and had to be extricated by the U.S. military, it added.

Of course, even in that reoort, officials were pleading with security personnel to "stop shooting." And the Iraqi National Police report says there was no such mayhem, and certainly no fire that the Blackwater employees returned. The difference is that the INP has video.

Yet an extensive evidence file put together by the Iraqi National Police and obtained by NEWSWEEK—including documents, maps, sworn witness statements and police video footage—appears to contradict the contractors’ version of events. A confidential incident report, which has been provided by Iraqi National Police investigators to American military and civilian officials, concludes that the Blackwater vehicles “opened fire crazily and randomly, without any reason.”

Iraqi National Police investigators also believe that Blackwater's helicopters fired on the cars from above, according to confidential police documents and interviews with senior police officials. A memo written on Sept. 17 by the lead Iraqi police investigator states that shortly after the shooting began, “helicopters opened fire from the air toward the cars and civilians.”

Newsweek has some of the video on their site, and ABC has stills. There does appear to have been a car bomb, but the key question is whether Blackwater was fired upon. Even the State Department report given to ABC sounds like they opened fire on a car who didn't slow down at a traffic stop.

Hard to sort out. But the Defense Department thought now would be a perfect time to award Blackwater a new contract for $92 million dollars. That's accountability, defense-contractor style. Hopefully this is one of the contracts looked at by the new wartime contracting commission, a modern-day Truman Commission, passed by Sens. Webb and McCaskill. This is a major development that may not end the war, but if implemented effectively can relieve a lot of the defense-industry pressure that leads to war. And the freshman Democrats had to get it done.

UPDATE: By the way, those were four Blackwater employees burned alive in Fallujah in 2004. And apparently, the company was trying to save a buck and insufficiently protected them.

UPDATE II: On the bright side, Blackwater did cancel a planned expansion project.

Army Chief of Staff urges exact same policy as the Webb amendment

The biggest story of the story IMO happened in the House Armed Services Committee. While the Senate was off passing pipe dream partition plans that nobody in Iraq actually wants, and the rest of the House was passing two more months of a blank check for Iraq, Robert Gates asked for $190 billion more in spending for Iraq and Afghanistan. But Army Chief of Staff George Casey was there as well. And his plea sounded extremely familiar.

General George W Casey told the Congressional Armed Forces Committee that it was imperative soldiers had longer breaks from battlefield duty to reduce the psychological and physical toll on manpower and family life.

Has a ring to it, doesn't it? In fact, it's fleshed out by this Washington Post story that predictably landed on page A15 today.

Army Chief of Staff George W. Casey Jr., who is scheduled to testify today before the House Armed Services Committee, intends to move as quickly as possible to grant soldiers more relief from the war zone, having argued that the troop rotations of 15 months in combat and 12 months at home -- required by the buildup of U.S. forces in Iraq and the conflict in Afghanistan -- are "not sustainable" for the Army [...]

"The Army . . . is trying very hard to reduce the amount of time deployed versus the dwell time back in the United States, trying to get to a 12-month deployment to a 12-month dwell time back at home station," said Maj. Gen. Richard Sherlock, director of operational planning for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon briefing yesterday.

Hmm... dwell time... one-to-one relationship of time deployed to time at home... I know I heard this somewhere, just give me a sec...



Right! So Jim Webb's amendment is the entire basis for the stated policy of the US Army, and the Chief of Staff testified in an open session that it was imperative that the Webb amendment be made permanent military policy.

Incidentally, this shows John Warner, who switched his vote on the Webb amendment because he was "told by the military" that it wasn't sustainable, to be completely full of shit.

Gen. Casey and Army Secretary Pete Geren, who is also scheduled to testify today, have spoken frequently with lawmakers in recent weeks to inform them about the strain on the Army and the need for continued funding to rebuild the main U.S. ground force after four years of warfare have depleted its manpower and equipment.

Casey and other members of the Joint Chiefs have made no secret of their concerns about the stress imposed by the troop buildup. "Now we're 15 out, 12 back. And that's not sustainable," Casey said at a forum earlier this month. "I do not want to go beyond 15 months on the ground for the soldiers, and I want to get to more than a year at home as rapidly as we can," he said. Asked whether he thought the troop increase was working, Casey, who until this spring served as the top U.S. commander in Iraq, replied: "It remains to be seen."

For some reason, the Democrats have taken no for an answer and moved on to other blank check funding and MoveOn condemnation (I'm told the Congress will shut down temporarily until MoveOn runs another ad, for fear that they'll end up with nothing to talk about). But this testimony made it very clear that the Webb amendment is the ONLY solution to an Army that is well past the breaking point.

"No one can disguise the fact that the Army's ability to project forces is nil. They are not ready for full spectrum combat and it's recognized now," said a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

This is not only because of manpower, but equipment. We give huge outlays to giant corporations for cost-plus, no-bid contracts, but what we haven't done is fund replacement parts and repairs for equipment that's been used non-stop for the last four-plus years, both from the military and the National Guard. The Army is actually toast, thanks to this disaster. And the ability to confront any potential crisis throughout the world doesn't exist.

Yet the Democrats have simply stopped trying to put something as sensible as readiness on the front burner, despite the ARMY BEGGING FOR IT.

Good On Jim Webb

After saying out loud that the completely insane resolution that Joe Lieberman wanted to insert into the Defense Authorization Bill amounted to a declaration of war, Jim Webb apparently inspired enough concern from the Dems that Harry Reid shelved the bill, though this doesn't sound like that'll last for long.

REID: There are efforts being made before we vote on them to modify those two amendments, because people have issues with both of those amendments. So, until we finalize what they really want to do, I think it would be unwise for me to say that I support Kyl-Lieberman, or don’t support it. I think I have to wait until I see what they are finally going to come up with, because some people have some real substantive problems with what’s in that Kyl-Lieberman amendment.

I guess the question that everyone should have is, why was this allowed to go this far before being pulled back? It appears that the Democratic leadership was perfectly happy to allow the Iranian equivalent of the Iraq Liberation Act, which wingers still talk about as an impetus for war with Iraq, to be pushed through the Senate, until Webb ruined their fun and let it be known publicly just how dangerous this is. Despite being disappointed with Webb's vote to condemn MoveOn, this is why I appreciate his presence in the Senate. He will say that which is otherwise unspeakable, and ruin the little establishment tea parties which inevitably lead to more war.

Wake Me Up When September Ends

The Webb Amedment failed with 56 votes.

Last time around, in July, it got... 56 votes. This time Tim Johnson was back to vote yes, and John Warner turned his back on America and voted no.

So after all the calls, all the marches, all the pressure... nothing's changed.

Ever have one of those days?

A good majority leader would walk to the podium and say that the Republicans just squandered their best deal on Iraq. Now everything should be about hard deadlines for withdrawal. Make them BEG to have the Webb Amendment back. And make them round up their own 60 votes for a blank check.