Do me a favor and look at the roll call of the House vote on the Iraq supplemental. You should see the name Harman on this list of ‘Nays’. She’s right there between Hare and Hastings (FL) and it’s pretty clear that the House clerk recorded her vote as a ‘no’. Maybe that is some kind of clerical error, or maybe Jane has forgotten how to vote, but it seems to make a mockery of Smokin’ Joe Klein’s point here:
I was wrong, sadly, last week to say that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would vote for the Iraq supplemental bill. They voted against. As readers here know, I would have voted for the bill. Voting against it means you’re in favor of a precipitous departure from Iraq…
…Yesterday I spoke with Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-Ca.) just back from Iraq, who voted for the bill–as did a majority of Democrats who are not running for President. “Look, I would love to have cast a vote against Bush on this. We need a new strategy and I hope we can force one in September,” she told me. “But I flew into Baghdad on a troop transport with 150 kids, heading into the field. To vote against this bill was to vote against giving them the equipment, the armor they need. I couldn’t do that.”
Like I said, maybe there is a clerical error, but right now the official tally shows that Harman could indeed ‘do that’. As for Klein’s other point, Obama and Hillary voted ‘nay’ for the same reason that many of their colleagues voted ‘yes’. They have no balls. But, unlike their colleagues, they got the vote right.
Contrary to Klein’s childish assessment, a nay vote on this bill wasn’t a vote for a ‘precipitous departure from Iraq’. It was plainly and simply a vote against funding the war with ineffectual strings attached. It was a vote to hold out for a better bill. Hillary, for example, has made it abundantly clear that she has no intention of making a ‘precipitous departure from Iraq’…far from it. Voting against a no-strings-attached funding bill doesn’t change that and it will only fool the credulous. And, unfortunately for Hillary, she has now opened herself up for charges that she isn’t a serious candidate from the likes of Joke Line.
I wonder if he will correct his column if it turns out that the House clerk recorded Harman’s vote correctly?
Update [2007-5-25 11:30:24 by BooMan]: Joke Line looks like such a dick. Jane Harman did vote against.
“Today’s vote must be seen as a referendum on this President’s refusal to listen to a majority of Americans and a majority of Congress, who want him to end the combat mission and implement the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations on training, counter-insurgency, and enhanced diplomatic and economic efforts in the region.
“I support our troops and I refuse to be manipulated. My ‘no’ vote on the Iraq Supplemental is a vote to move past the fractured politics on Iraq and restore some sanity and bipartisanship as Congress confronts the serious threats of the 21st century.”
Joe Klein is such a tool.
She did vote no, even diaried it on dKos
Please tell me where these fools, Jane Harman included, get the idea that having accountability for progress in Iraq automatically translates into voting against giving them equipment and armor?
Bulletin to Jane: THIS IS A REPUBLICAN TALKING POINT!!
Don’t these people ever sit down and think about it? Don’t they ever have a discussion with anyone who might explain this simple fact?
Damn, it pisses me off when people are so intellectually lazy!! People are dying unnecessarily every day and the Democrats in Congress are unable to even understand a simple cause and effect.
Aaaaaaaarrrrrgggghhhhh !!!!!!!!!
Joe Klein should also correct this:
This is so sloppy as to be totally inaccurate.
First of all, Harman is a member of the House, not the Senate. And in the House, the vast majority of Democrats voted against. In fact, 54 more Dems voted against than voted for (53 if we subtract Kucinich, who is running for President).
Since 53 is more than the total number of Democrats in the Senate, it’s obvious that more Democrats voted against than voted for.
So Jane Harman voted NAY. My bad. Feel free to substitute any of the following names in my prior post for Jane’s name.
The rest of my earlier post still applies to them.
As for Jokeline’s post on Swampland, Gomer Pyle said it best:
Surprise, surprise, surprise !!!!
Uh, so who was Joke Line talking to? Was it a real person or some kind of an hallucination?
Perhaps he was channeling Scoop Jackson.
Harman is one of the few points of light here, evidence that maybe the Democratic party can be saved. She has always been a hawk, and I keep waiting for her to turn back, but last year’s primary challenge really seems to have scared her straight.
Or I should say, reminded her how out of touch she was from the voters on this issue.
…”premature” and “precipitous” withdrawal BS.
It’s not “premature” to do something that should have been done years ago. And nobody is suggesting that U.S. troops throw down their weapons, turn their backs on the insurgents of Iraq and run away, so “precipitous” is just spin. Unfortunately, many, many Democrats have bought into that spin instead of offering counterspin.
Not only that, she is one of the 7 Democrats that voted against the war on the vote that counted, the rules vote. The vote most of them are bragging about didn’t count for anything. See David Sirota’s recent blogs for the explanation.
Thank you Harmon, Clay, Kucinich, McNeary, Stark, Waters, and Wolf.
Imagine.
You work in HR. The hiring manager says, “After the interviews, we decided we really don’t want to hire Jane Doe. Post the job ad again, OK?” But you screw up and tell everyone, “The hiring manager says, they decided they really want to hire Jane Doe, so write the offer letter and don’t post the job ad again, OK?” Hey, no problem! Right?
Or imagine.
The purchasing agent wants to order 150 Macs because, she tells you, her company hates Windows and doesn’t want to try to migrate to Linux and has standardized on Macs. But you screw up and write the order for 1,500 PCs with Windows and Linux — dual boot — and send it on for fulfillment and shipping. Hey, no problem! Right?
Now imagine that Joe Klein, after getting the key fact exactly backwards, will get dumped in favor of a hack who can count all the way to two without getting either number wrong — or even get an inquiring phone call from his boss.
Right … Dream on — for Joe, it’s no problem.
With kind regards,
Dog, &c.
searching for home, always on the roam