Hillary has to do a little MORE than cast some token vote that gets "covered" by some other Senators on the blood-for-oil team. I need to see her FILIBUSTER some really huge war appropriation, regardless of whatever window dressing comes attached to it. NOTHING LESS! And It has to be a three digit -- $100+ BILLION appropriation. I am getting more, not less, pissed. I HAVE HAD IT WITH THIS BULLSHIT! NO MORE BLOOD-FOR-OIL-MONEY -- PERIOD.

The Brits have cut their losses. And MI6 must know something. I have lost all patience with this procedural merry-go round!

Senators Clinton, Dodd, and Obama did indeed vote "Nay" on the retched bill to give the white house A BLANK CHECK to continue its Middle East fiasco, and that is most commendable! See:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/5/25/9345 7/6745

That bill is:

H.R. 2206  (U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007) -- "Making emergency supplemental appropriations and additional supplemental appropriations for agricultural and other emergency assistance for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007, and for other purposes."

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/ro ll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?con gress=110&session=1&vote=00181

BUT: Senators Dodd, Clinton, Obama, and Lugar Have just now pushed through an absurd resolution denouncing Venezuela for not renewing the license of a TV station that actively supported the 2002 military coup against that democratically elected government.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jump! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This week's likely going to be another crazy one in the Senate. Carl Levin -- a persistent senator if there every was one -- is spearheading a plan to shrink the war authorization given to the President in 2002. Back then, you'll remember, Congress gave Bush all the freedom in the world to do what he saw fit in Iraq.

(For the record, Levin was one of the 23 "nay" votes on the war in the first place. He's got nothing to apologize for there. Heck, if you don't mind me reminiscing a bit, ah hem -- I was working in the House back in 2002 and I remember this vote so clearly. And what sticks in my head most is how many of us staffers were just so befuddled: why were our institutions so dead set on rushing into this war? Levin was one of those members you looked to and thought, hey, maybe I'm not so crazy after all.)

We all know how this story goes. Bush took the power "to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq" and, well, ran with it. Now Levin aims to use a second binding resolution to call the President back home. On Meet the Press this morning, Levin gave an overview of the plan for this week:

Since we have the Politico Senate poll on Iraq (Chris's piece earlier today), which includes a question on the surge, I thought I'd play about with the numbers.

Chris says that 58 senators pronounced themselves against the surge (it's PDF, rather than Excel - I'm not going to count it manually!).

So far as I can see, of Dem senators, only Lieberman, Lincoln and (for obvious reasons) Johnson failed to to so.

Matt links Yglesias who links Dionne.

Their argument: the fact that GOP senators are wetting themselves over it is a sure sign that the nonbinding Iraq res is important.

This, I think, is a counter to the Feingoldists who say, A nonbinding res is nothing, only defunding is worth a red cent.

Which is much the same as Cheney and Cornyn's argument (as quoted by Dionne).

Yesterday, I made an effort to analyze the result of the Iraq res tourney without benefit of the Congressional Record.

A new day dawns - and the Record descends like manna from on high. A modest amount of light is shed.

On the reason why the debate was on a bill, S 470, rather than a res, like S Con Res 7 - though each had the same text: it seems that resolutions are harder to amend than bills; and that it was intended all along that the ultimate legislative product (if any) would be a con res.

A couple of days ago a certain sage of the Capitol opined thus:

I assume that, given McConnell's strategy, cloture on the MTP will zip through.

Just now watching on C-SPAN, I saw cloture on the motion to proceed on the Warner-Levin bill S 470 fail on an almost perfectly party-line vote.

Hard not to wonder at Uncle Harry's tone of pained incomprehension speaking just before the vote when the GOP had been offered votes on the McCain-Lieberman benchmarks text and the Gregg no-funding-cutoffs text - and still they were throwing a tantrum!

So - like any prognosticator with chutzpah, I get straight back on the horse - why did they do that?

A few weeks ago, I scratched the surface of the mountain of Congressional paperwork aimed at curbing the Vietnam war to see what examples might usefully be drawn from that experience.

I then look at a useful couple of Salon pieces, one by Walter Shapiro Why the Democrats can't stop the surge and another by Rick Perlstein Why Democrats can stop the war in reply to the Shapiro, both of which draw on the Vietnam precedent to come to opposing conclusions on what can be done on Iraq.