Republicans: We don't need no stinking debate

So much for debating a war which has drug on longer than WWII with no end in sight.
From Politico.com:

In a rare Saturday session, Senate Republicans blocked Democrats from debating a House-approved resolution rejecting President Bush's plan to send another 21,500 combat troops into Iraq.

Republicans united largely behind Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Cabbage Patch Doll, and refused to allow the measure to be considered unless they could offer an alternative declaring that funding for military personnel in Iraq would not be cut.

The vote on a cloture motion filed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was 56 to 34, four short of the 60 votes needed to begin debate.

Seven Republicans voted with the Democrats: Sens. John Warner of Virginia, Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Gordon Smith of Oregon and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both of Maine.

Only Coleman and Collins had previously sided with the Democrats in an earlier bid to start Senate debate an Iraq resolution that would certainly have led to a rebuke of the president’s strategy.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., joined the GOP filibuster Saturday and voted against cloture.

A big thanks goes out to Smokin' Joe, the guy all the DLC types just love. Who would have suspected he'd bolt his party on such an important matter? (cough)

It's worth noting that John McCain skipped out on the vote altogther, choosing to stump in Iowa instead of putting down his marker on the issue.

The debate over whether to debate the escalation was just depressing in its vapidity and ugliness. Perhaps most disgusting were politicians of both parties, though overwhelmingly Republican, using "the troops" like some ragdoll prop and trying to push them into the middle of the debate in a way which they have no business being used.

This red herring about how a debate over the wisdom of escalation is somehow going to put all of our troops into some deep funk and depression is pure unadultrated hogwash, as is the notion spouted by some that if we don't pursue this phoney baloney and largely meaningless escalation, then we'll all be praying in a mosque before we know what hit us.

Pure stupidity, and it's truly jaw-dropping to actually listen to what some of these cretinous, mostly southern, Republican house members are willing to say on the floor of the house. If the intelligence of their remarks is any reflection on their constituency, then there actually are places in this country populated by the likes of the banjo playing guy in Deliverance where people swim in their own gene pool.

The worst moron this time around is the guy who's skeered to death a them mooslums. The same idiot who freaked out when the rep from Minnesota took his oath on a Koran in a private ceremony. I don't have the text of his remarks handy, and I've conveniently blocked out his name from my memory. (to save space) But I do recall his drawling on about how the Mooslums will be hoisting the star and crescent over all of our schools and capitol buildings if we debate Bush's phony escalation.

I think that's what you resort to when you're just plain out of any rational argument whatsoever. Try the good old "Muslim hoarde" tactic. (just like the "Yellow Peril" and "Red Menace" before it.) I also liked the way he pronouced their religious leader as "Moo-ham-ed". Nevermind the troop morale being affected by remarks in the House, hearing these morons depresses the morale of 90% of the planet! Makes you wince to think that anyone outside the U.S. might actually hear this sort of stuff. I hate to see these folks confirming their very worse opinions of us.

So now the games continue. Republicans apparently trying to force the Dems into putting their money where their mouths are by daring them to cut funding for the escalation.

I sincerely hope that the Murtha legislation succeeds. It requires that no troops be dispatched unless they are both fully trained, and fully equipped with necessary body armor, etc.

And perhaps most importantly, it would provide that troops have a full year between being deployed, as has always been the case prior to the Iraq invasion. This alone would serve to slow down any increase in troop levels.

**UPDATE**

I've just noticed that Dave Barrett over at Moline Democratic Maverick has a post up mentioning this cro-magnon I refer to above. He's a Virginia Representive by the name of Virgil Goode and he makes Goober from Mayberry look like Steven Hawking.