How much debate must there be?

Is it not crystal clear that Iraq is disintegrating around us and the best thing that can possibly be done is get out of the way as opposed to standing in the middle of a 3 sided civil war?

My concern is we still have the Gang of 14 in operation, but not working in favor of the Democrats. This means we will need A LOT more than 3 or 4 moderates to come over to our side. For example, how does Ben Nelson REALLY feel on the escalation issue?

I think Feingold has a point... call your senators regardless whether you think they don't want escalation or not. I have a feeling there's some game playing that may relate to the Presidential election maybe? That the DLC'ers don't want to pull the image of the their Democrat nominee to look too anti-war and instead have a chance to look pretty and say v. little. Sometimes I would just like them to walk out, you know, in the name of democracy and the troops etc etc... screw the MSM.

Plus, I'm not up on procedural stuff, but couldn't Reid just refused to bring up the Gregg amendment, haven't the republicans done that to us before? Saying they were trying to use the amendment to strip the intent, focus of what the democrats wanted to debate etc??

I'm just wondering?

I have to admit, I don't understand the ins and outs of the parliamentary manoeuvres. Hagel, Warner and Snowe basically voted to kill debate--not a vote, not the resolution itself, but debate--on their own resolution(s). Smith and Voinavich went along with them. Collins and Coleman voted to debate, but are now playing the David Broder "both sides are to blame" card, which has rarely been so completely made up of pure bullshit than in this case.
No, I am not an objective observer, but could anybody explain to me what I've got wrong?

The stroke of genius was proposing a resolution that committed the Senate to continuing funding of the troops no matter what... The Democratic leadership couldn't allow that to pass (and it would have). By refusing to allow that motion on the floor, it opened the door for the GOP to oppose the other motions, such as Warner. "Debate them all or we won't allow you to debate any of them" was their cry.

If one of these people is your senator, keep up the pressure through calls and emails. Smith (mine) is facing re-election in 08, and he appears to be dancing back and forth, trying to appease all sectors of his electorate. With any luck, he'll end up alienating everybody.

Oh please! Steve, this is technically what is known as bullshit. My biggest question -- is it coming from you, or are you just carrying water for these laughably titled ronin.

This is not a both sides issue. This is a Republican issue. That you seem ignorant of that makes you seem either a dupe or a stooge. So stop please. We expect better of you.

These "ronin" (ha ha ha ha ha!) are trying to spread blame around for the antics of their party and themselves. They are pretending to have courage they have never exhibited, for principles they have never lived up to.

So please stop with the faux bipartisanship. It's false and wrong and, um, bullshit.

Arthur,

First, we have one Senator out sick, and second we have one Senator who votes with the other party on the war. "Control of the Senate" without 60 clear votes is a will-o-the-wisp.

Also, figuring out Senate rules is a little like trying to learn the rules for cricket.

Almost everybody in the Senate is trying to find a way to distance themselves from any decisive action, because they fear the consequences. A withdrawal will trigger a conflagration, so people like Schumer don't want to advocate a withdrawal. They'd rather wait until the Republicans see that they are going to pay heavily in 08, and will themselves initiate the withdrawal by pressuring the president.

The senators in the blue or purple states up in 08 know they're in deep trouble. Collins, Smith and Coleman all know that if the US is still in Iraq when they are up for reelection, there's a very good chance they will lose.

IMO, every class II senator is at risk. Take Ted Stevens. He could well be beaten by a Tester-type or a Webb-type candidate. But they can't just jettison the President, so they're stalling, in the meantime trying to hang the war on the democrats.

Feingold's right. This watered-down bill is worse than doing nothing. This resurgence of the gang of 14 is just another scheme to avoid responsibility, and continue inaction when every single one of them, except maybe Lieberman, knows that this war is a catastrophe. And they don't want to be blamed.

You have to understand that the basis of this is what will happen in Iraq after a US departure. The democrats don't want the blame for the result, so they won't take decisive action. It's an immoral and irresponsible position to take. Almost every single senator cares about his seat more than he or she does about american soldiers, innocent Iraqi citizens, or, not to put too fine a point on, the United States.

The Jacobin faction here who'd guillotine anyone who didn't speak up in due purity against the war early enough was ready to prefer Hagel over any Democrat, regardless of his conservative credentials. Now we see he votes the party line anyhow, so the faction and Steve are equally dupes of the GOP slime. 

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

Arthur:

It's complicated. Basically I think he means that many of the Republicans were for having a debate before they were against it. Apparently, at least seven of them are now again in favor of having the debate, so it's a double back flip.

My problem with Steve Clemons is his claim that part of the problem was that the Democratic leadership wasn't playing nice. He provided no reasons for this claim, of course. But I am cheering that they had the guts to stand up to Mitch McConnel's attempt at (1) imposing a standard of 60 votes required to debate any resolution, and (2) inserting a poison pill resolution that would limit any future ability to use the power of the purse.

I've sampled several news sources this morning and the GOP appears to be losing the PR war on this big time. And only a year ago, the GOP wanted to eliminate the filibuster!

Reid couldn't block the Gregg "amendment" because the Publicans were threatening to filibuster the other two resolutions. Further, by insisting that all three votes needed to pass by a supermajority, they were trying to make sure that only the Gregg "amendment" had a chance of passage.

Reid could have gotten a simple majority on the two resolutions and the amendment. Not enough Publican Senators were willing to break with Dubya and the posse and vote for the two resolutions, guaranteeing that they would pass by less than 60 votes.

It makes no difference who the Publican Senators are, except for the half-dozen who expect to have bruising reelection campaigns in 2008. Reid can't get to 60 votes until the Publican phalanx shatters. When it does, Reid will likely be able to get 90+ votes in favor of whatever resolution is being considered.

OK, this is my best shot at explaining, but I don't claim to be an expert in this area. My post was mostly about the ridiculous contortions that the GOP seems to be going through right now. Bottom line is I believe Harry Reid got the strategy right in just dropping the debate at this point. Keep in mind that we haven't heard the end of it. Reid is coordinating with the House and they will now pick this up and pass a resolution which Harry and the Dems can use to knock around a few GOP senators.

The House is very different from the Senate. The party that runs the House is in complete control over all business which comes to the floor. There is no filibuster.

In the Senate, debate cannot be cut off unless a super majority votes to do so (60). This is called a cloture motion. Rather than waiting for a filibuster to occur (as in the old movie Mr. Smith goes to Washington), either side can announce that they will not allow a vote to be taken "up or down" without a cloture motion. Generally, the rules of the Senate (which vary from session to session) then require no debate on motions which can't muster cloture, since it would be a waste of time (not sure about this point in the current case--corrections would be welcome).

In the present case, more than 60 Senators would have voted for the Warner bill (possibly) but less than 60 would have voted for cloture on the Warner bill. The difference is explained by different levels of accountability and PR back home. In essence (I got this from a Washington Post political commentary but I don't recall the specific source), only the Gregg resolution would have had enough votes to come to a vote (achieve cloture).

Here's the announcement of the House action, hot off the press from a few minutes ago (WashPo):

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, and other party leaders met with members of the Democratic caucus for more than an hour today to discuss the framework of the first major debate over Iraq since Democrats took control of Congress last month. The three-day debate is set to begin next Tuesday.

The leaders reassured Democrats that the nonbinding, symbolic vote against the troop buildup plan would be the first — not the final — expression of opposition to the war. A letter signed by 71 House Democrats urged the party’s leaders to take a stronger stance, including outlining a six-month troop withdrawal plan...

...The Senate has struggled to bring the Iraq resolution up for a vote, despite having bipartisan support for a variety of plans offered by Senators Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Carl Levin of Michigan, both Democrats, and Senators John W. Warner of Virginia and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, both Republican.

Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the chairman of the House Democratic caucus, said the House resolution would be a simple expression of support — or opposition — to the White House troop buildup plan.

“It’s not Biden-Hagel. It’s not Warner-Levin. It’s Bush. Mr. Emanuel said in an interview today. “It will be an up or down vote on whether you support the president’s policy.”

In the Senate, the impasse over the Iraq continued, with Republicans and Democrats pointing the blame at one another for failing to budge on procedural maneuvering to bring the symbolic war resolution up for debate.