Misremembering the K/F Iraq vote in '06

[TayTay]

This was a paragraph on My Direct Democracy about the need to get 60 US Senators.

In July of '06, Russ Feingold announced that he was tying Iraq war funding to a timetable for withdrawal. John Kerry signed on. The most votes they got that year, before the midterm, was 13. But with months of negotiation and work to beat back the bogus "funding for our troops" meme, Feingold got to 29 votes in May of '07, a majority of Dems in the Senate. And many of those votes came from the Democratic Senators elected in the '06 midterm, even if most of them were not as openly against the war as Feingold. There were simply more Dems to work with.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/6/26/172341/194

I think some of this is wrong. First of all this happened in June of 06 and not July. And Sen. Kerry first came out for a timeline in an OpEd in early April of '06. There are more errors in this article too.

[beachmom]

1. Unfortunately, it is from Thursday and well off the page.

Feingold did come out with a timetable in August 2005. So credit where credit is due. However, it was not a real policy, just a timetable. And the K/F amendment was not a timetable tied to funding. And Feingold joined Kerry on that amendment. Kerry wrote it.

Sigh, sigh, sigh.

[karynnj]

3. In August 2005, it was for "flexible target dates"

(a phrase that was tortured English - as target dates infer some flexibility. Feingold's plan called for the creation of a time table that would lead to all troops being out by Dec 2006. It does deserve credit as the first proposal to sugest, but not say, deadlne.

Kerry, in his Path Forward, after visiting Iraq in August 2005, layed out a plan that called for troops to be out in 12 to 15 months. It also included recommendations on major changes to what the roles of the troops would be starting immediately. The most significant recommendations were:

- to get the US out of Search & destroy and policing immediately. (In the many interviews, Kerry expertly used his eloquence and experience to explain why doing otherwise was wrong for both the Iraqis and the US.)
- to immediately say we wanted no permanent bases
- To put the troops away from day to day conflict.

The difference in proposals, were not that much in terms of time line - in fact, given that Kerry proposed them in late Oct - his 12 to 15 month timeline dovetails nicely with Feingold's. Kerry's was 2 months later. But, the bigger difference was that Kerry's plan was far more detailed in terms of both the diplomatic and military steps that needed to be taken. It was this proposal and earlier Kerry ones that contained parts of what became the Iraq study group recommendations. Feingold was not one of those credited as providing insight to them.

In November, Kerry was with Feingold, Kennedy and a few others in writing a resolution that they hoped all Democrats could support. There was a Feingold comment of that vintage that that Kerry, he and the others were in the forefront of getting out.

As to Kerry/Feingold, you just need to look at their individual bills and Kerry/Feingold. There is far more "Kerry" than "Feingold" in the latter bill. Also, it was Kerry who led in its introduction - though he let Feingold speak first on the day it was debated and voted. It was Kerry who took the bulk of the attack on the amendment.

This is a silly attack designed to take away Kerry's legitimate credit on this.

[wisteria]

2. Obviously, this is someone promoting Feingold. K/F was Kerry's bill- period.

Feingold signed on to Kerry's bill. Kerry's bill was the one voted on in June 06. I still have the tape of the late night debate between Senator Warner and Senator Kerry. It was wonderful watching them both debate Kerry's bill and his ideas for Iraq.
This pisses me off, Kerry took all the heat and ridicule even within our party for pushing this. And, now some uninformed revisionist is promoting Feingold using his misinformation.
Feingold did have a bill, but that bill I believe, included cutting off funds immediately and had absolutely no support within the party. Grrrrrr.