Kerry to Vote No on Iraq Bill: ‘An Iraq Bill Without a Deadline is Meaningless’
by Pamela LeaveyThe new Iraq spending bill is making waves and Chris Bowers on MYDD has the new video from Chris Dodd up that explains why Dodd is voting “NO” on the bill. Bowers said, “It will be interesting to see if there is a chorus of Democrats who start to join him on this.” Meteor Blades on DKos reports that “nearly a two-thirds majority, will vote against the egregious Iraq funding “compromise” put together by the Senate-House conference committee.”
Here’s one Senator who will be joining Dodd with a “NO” vote. Personally, I had no reason to think that Kerry would support the new plan…
Sen. John Kerry issued the following statement today on his plan to vote “no” on a military spending bill that no longer contains any binding deadline for the redeployment of troops from Iraq. He reiterated that a “timeframe for redeployment of the troops is the Only Way Forward.”
“We support the troops by getting the policy right and this bill allows the President to keep getting the policy wrong. We need a deadline to force Iraqis to stand up for Iraq and bring our heroes home, not watered down benchmarks and blank check waivers for this President. We support the troops by funding the right mission, not with a White House that opposes a pay raise for our brave men and women in uniform,” Kerry said. “The original Senate legislation offered a roadmap to change course in Iraq. This new version enables the Administration and Iraqi politicians to deliver more of the same. I am determined to continue pressing this issue until President Bush changes course. We owe our troops nothing less than a strategy that is worthy of their sacrifice.”
Keep the pressure on… Chime in here: Tell Congress – No Blank Check For Iraq.
UPDATE: Thank Chris Dodd for standing strong on this.
UPDATE 2: Bob Geiger reports Feingold and Sanders will also vote “NO.”
Filed under: Bush Admin, Congress, Democrats, Election '08, Foreign Policy, House Of Reps, In The News, Iraq, John Kerry, Politics, Republicans, Senate | Get Permalink or trackback |
Good for Senator Kerry!
and also good for Chris Dodd!
. . also a good time to visit Sen. Kerry’s http://www.setadeadline.com, and sign that petition, too, if you haven’t already.
MBK
Always good to see JK leading the way. And Dodd is looking mighty interesting these days.
Thank God……………..
I think this is definitely a watershed moment, and to quote the other aisle, a “litmus test”. Any Dem who would vote for this joke is a capitulator and has lost my support. How can our Democratic leadership accept this as “the best, last, final offer” when 70% of the American people oppose this? Why do they fear political fallout? Do theyb really think that they’ll lose votes over the 30 second soundbite of “not supporting the troops”? Any sensible Dem oughtta see that they’ll LOSE a ton of votes by voting yes, and if they framed this whole issue correctly (as in “We gave a bill that supported the troops, the president vetoed it”, etc.) they’d actually be doing the right thing AND get reelected. Some days it’s like watching a trainwreck and I just shake my head and say WTF…………..
Javelin
Watershed moment is right! Hey how the heck are you? Missed you around here.
Been very very busy……….haven’t been able to post anything unique (IE- nothing that everyone else isn’t already on top of). Even the above is just me venting my anger.
Once again I feel disgusted by my own party’s leadership like “pronoun-gate” this last fall. WTH, maybe Americans will ask the question from 1971, “Where are the leaders of our country?…….” and realize the best potential leader isn’t even running in 2008. Even with all the other issues we might have with them, you gotta like Dodd and John Edwards for stepping up and calling this what it is (and to hell with the political consequences).
It will be very interesting to see where Hil and Obama line up on this. Being active Senators, they’re about to get litmus tested for all the active progressives in this country to see….I guess it’s a blessing that this issue will help a lot of people decide which of the Democratic candidates will be progressive and which ones are just triangulating or politicizing everything and would easily fold in a light breeze once elected to the Oval Office.
Olbermann: ‘Who Among Us Will Stop This War, This War Of Lies’
In his “Special Comment” tonight about the “Democrats’ deal with President Bush to continue financing this unspeakable war in Iraq—and to do so on his terms,” Keith Olbermann said, “The entire government has failed us…
It’s really sad that people continue to blame Kerry and other Dems for “ending the war they help start” (Go figure
), call them “spineless” and play the “my Senator voted against it and knew” game.
It’s like “ha, ha, we were right, you were wrong” attitude. For some reason, it just sounds arrogant. It’s always like no matter what Kerry does, it’s never good enough for some people.
Sheesh.
[...] overnment has failed us on Iraq.” Only the few that have bravely stood and announced they will vote “NO” in no uncertain terms will have done the right thing… Or maybe t [...]
At least there are SOME Dems that will bring a little sanity to this process!
Jav
I hear you on the very busy… I can’t seem to extricate myself from here too often though.
I have a feeling Hill and Obama will come through on this. I could be wrong but I think this vote may run like the last one with perhaps the same 27 voting against it.
Indie
If folks are still talking that stuff they have nothing better to do. I didn’t see any of it on DU in my thread or on DKos. But I haven’t been back there for a few hours.
Pam,
It’s was a rant based on a comment from your diary (Good one BTW
).
I do hope that Hil, Obama and others will follow Kerry, Dodd, Feingold, and other Dems on this and vote against this Iraq Bill.
Indie
I caught that after your comment here. Some people are stuck in a rut. They’ll get it eventually – or they won’t.
Note to Bush: 76% Say Iraq War Going Badly
As Congress prepares to capitualte to the whims of our maniacal leader, the Commander Guy, a new CBS POll shows that “the number of Americans who say the war is going badly has reached a new high, rising 10 percent this month to 76 percent.̶…
[...] om the left by bowing to Mr. Bush. It is a mess no matter how we look at it. John Kerry, who will vote “NO” on the legislation, chimes in, in a blog post to the netroots, saying: [...]