That's a Bad President. Bad! Get in your Cage.

Yesterday the Senate Republicans picked up where they left off as the majority: By doing absolutely nothing.

Republicans blocked debate on a non-binding resolution over the "President's" Iraq policy. For those who don't know, a non-binding resolution is the political equivalent to a harsh wagging of the finger and the phrase "you're in a serious time out mister" only to give the child candy because his face turns red and you feel bad. But still the debate could have opened doors towards a more binding resolution (like, say, one that binds) and eventually put enough pressure on the "President" to change the Iraq strategy to something that may, in fact, work.

Originally the resolution was drafted with bipartisanship by Senators John Warner (R-VA) and Carl Levin (D-MI), and although it was not necessarily expected to receive the 60 votes necessary to pass the resolution, it was at least opening the floor to a spirited debate that could set the tone for the country and possibly the war. But just as guests on Jerry Springer flip off the audience and scream bratty obscenities and the phrase "you don't know me, I'll do what I want," so did the Republicans, as even John Warner voted against the debate for the plan he himself helped create.

From the New York Times:

Republicans had laid a bit of a trap for Democrats, seeking a 60-vote threshold for competing resolutions on the war. They knew that the bipartisan plan by Senators John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, and Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, did not have 60 votes. But the plan calling for no reductions in spending, written by Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, was likely to get at least 60, meaning the only resolution that would have passed would have been one that essentially backed the president.

And since there will be no backing of the "President" with the Democratic congress, the debate on whether to have the debate about the/a resolution was killed.

So way to not do anything again Republicans. Way to not make headway and pretend everything is going to be okay. Way to waste yet another day while our soldiers die in Iraq. Way to be.

"It is understandable that neither the US nor the British governments should want a debate on the failing war. But there is something wrong with a democracy in which congressmen want to hold the debate, one the American public desperately want to hear, and yet are blocked for narrow political reasons.

...

There are few more important issues confronting the US today - citizens of another country being killed in large numbers as well as their own troops - and it is shameful that America is denied, and denies itself, this debate."

--Ewen Macaskill