THE GOP'S "SPINELESS SAGES": Lugar, Warner, Domenici, Voinovich

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Spineless Sages
Top GOP Senators Only Talk Against the War
By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, July 18, 2007; Page A19

Anyone searching for the highest forms of invertebrate life need look no further than the floor of the U.S. Senate last week and this. These spineless specimens go by various names -- Republican moderates; respected senior Republicans; Dick Lugar, John Warner, Pete Domenici, George Voinovich.

They have seen the folly of our course in Iraq. The mission, they understand, cannot be accomplished. The Iraqi government, they discern, is hopelessly sectarian.

In wisdom, they are paragons. In action, they are nullities....

***

...they have drafted legislation that would require the administration to draw up plans for a pullback -- but not to implement them. Indeed, they act continually as if George Bush and Dick Cheney are amenable to argument and open to facts. "I'm hopeful they'll change their minds," Domenici said last week after a meeting with national security adviser Stephen Hadley. "I think we should continue to ratchet up the pressure, in addition to our words," said Voinovich, "to let the White House know we are very sincere."

Very sincere -- now there's a threat that concentrates the mind. These Republicans who proclaim their independence without acting on it have failed to come to terms with the single most important reality confronting them: that Bush and Cheney will keep the war going until Congress forces them to stop....

***

In February 1966, just 18 months after Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and just 15 months after Lyndon Johnson was elected president by a huge margin, Arkansas Democrat and Foreign Relations Committee Chairman J. William Fulbright held exhaustive and critical hearings on the Vietnam War, concluding that the war had become a quagmire. Fulbright incurred LBJ's enmity for his troubles, but the hearings laid the basis for our ultimate withdrawal from that war. The gutless wonders of today's GOP never could bring themselves to chart such a course, and it is their continued deference to Bush and Cheney that keeps our soldiers in Iraq to this day.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/17/AR2007071701487.html?nav=hcmodule

[TwilightGardener]

1. Good article. These "men" are pathetic. Blood is on their hands.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. And an interesting historical note about Senator Fulbright's bold action. nt

[peacebird]

3. I called Warner - left message that he voted to continue the failed occupation

instead of supporting our troops. Said that he placed party and pres above country. Told them I had voted for Warner in the past but would not ever vote for him again. Said I had thought last fall that Warner had started to come around until he voted procedurally against his own amendment. Also asked whatever happened to his investigations into torture and Abu Ghraib - or did he think we had forgotten his vow about them.

His aide sounded quite beaten down and meekly said she would pass my concerns along to the senator. I think she is recieving MANY such calls. Hope so anyhow - it took about 15 minutes to get thru to them.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Good work, peacebird -- thanks for reporting! nt

[OzarkDem]

5. Wow, who woke up the Wa Po?

They've been covering for the GoP promoting and passing meaningless legislation for years. Why speak out now?

[DeepModem Mom]

7. Well, this is a columnist, an independent voice. Editorially, WP is good on some subjects...

but, you're right, wrongheaded on others, including Iraq.

[brentspeak]

6. Those four had their 15 minutes of credibility...then lost it, last it.

[Hubert Flottz]

8. lugar, warner, domenici, voinovich...the scumbag squad

They are as guilty as bush and cheney!

[judaspriestess]

9. maybe they are being blackmailed

ya never know.

[BonnieJW]

10. I think they are too.

I think the wiretaps were made on GOP reps and the info is being held over their heads to keep them in line.