Unbelievably, even Bernie Sanders is a punk. Rhode Island is the only state in the country with two senators who have the guts to fund the closing of Guantanamo.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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that’s because we’re the biggest little state in the union. and when you’ve been through two stints of Governor Cianci, it’s hard to be scared of anything.
Rhode island also kicked some ass in the years leading up to the revolution, scuttling british ships and blaming it on connecticut. so I’m pretty proud of my non-wussy state today.
in a few minutes, i’ll be calling the NRSC to see what i can do to help dislodge Harry Reid. so not joking.
adding that if my current senators bob casey and areln specter had been alive during the revolution, we would have thrown in the towel before the first shot was fired.
Boo:
If you are going that route, Feingold is a punk as well. Someone should call Sanders and Feingold’s offices and ask them why they are bedwetters on this, and Sanders has even less of an excuse since Leahy voted the right way.
quite a few important issues. Despite his reputation of being “a fighter,” not a few people are disgusted with him.
We’ll see what Wisconsin Dems have to say about this one.
But, but, but,…hasn’t the senate saved us from being overrun with terrorists? < gasp >
I’ve never understood Sanders. For somebody that calls himself a socialist, he’s not that much of a reliable lefty in his voting. Has he explained his vote anywhere?
Maybe he thinks they all ought to be sent home.
Maybe. Sometimes he ends up voting with the Reps because neither wants to support the status quo. I can’t find anything where he explains his reasons, unfortunately.
All of the sudden 90 million is a lot of money again?
IMHO, I’d be cheaper and more humane and more fruitful to let them go filled with secret, surgically implanted ‘bugs’.
everyone forgets to mention that Guantanamo is President Bush’s leftover mess. I say close T. Don Hutto in Tyler Texas make a few improvements to make it a SuperMax prison. Because its obvious, if a town such as Tyler. TX is willing to house children in a jail, it would not mind housing Guantanamo detainees.
Wonder if, down the road, when the Democrats are in the minority once again, whether they will remember the lesson of how a victory such as this can be pulled off by a small minority of members posing as an opposition to the majority party?
Nah, probably not.
Another embarrassing day for Democrats. And they wonder how they get framed as weak. Well, it’s because often times that is exactly what they are.
But right now, you can do a lot with 40 votes.
Yeah, you sure can if your willing to stand up for something. Even if that something is boneheaded and wrong.
Someone please explain to me how they allowed this to ever get framed as “letting terrorists loose in the U.S”? How stupid are they?
Obviously, the answer is “very stupid”.
very stupid and absolutely gutless. Just gutless.
Maybe dishonest and hypocritical describe a lot of Democrats in Congress better.
That too!
they won’t remember any lessons. when have they ever?
shit, they still think the way to win with the american people is to do whatever the republicans tell them to!
ya know, i just realized: i have no one representing me in the senate.
The overwhelming message to the President today from his own party in the Senate was, simply,
Suck. On. This.
I actually think Obama doesn’t mind the vote today. After all, it gives him cover. He can now say he just can’t do anything to remedy the past wrongs regarding our detention of suspects because there just isn’t the political will to make the hard decisions.
So back to the drawing board. Looks like a second try at creating Kangaroo courts to “try” these suspects. And punting the issue to the Supreme Court again.
I don’t know. I’m not sure if the impression of Obama just shrugging his shoulders and saying, “Oh, well. I tried”, is something he would necessarily want.
There are many in the blogosphere, too, who always seem to consider something like this happening as part of some grander strategy by Obama that us mere mortals are just too simple to yet grasp. That’s probably not it either, though.
I’m beginning to be of the mind that maybe there really isn’t that big a gap between the thinking in the power centers of the GOP and the Dems inside the beltway on how they wish to proceed and handle this whole “war on terror” thing. Maybe the only real difference is that on January 20 the GOP window dressing was taken down and replaced with the Democrats version. But the reality is that what is hidden behind that window dressing isn’t any different today than it was on January 19.
i swear to god if I hear one more reference to 11-dimensional chess or obama’s incredible mental powers over us mere mortals, I will throw myself off a tall building.
i know you’re kidding, but please, just stop. it’s creepy whenever I hear it.
Yes, I was mocking these alleged super-mythical powers.
But Brendan, out of respect for your peace of mind and sanity I will refrain from commenting on this in the future.
The subject is now in the vault.
Circumscribed within the payoff bubble.
Something is up. Unless you think there are only six liberal Senators.
I’ve been coming around to thinking maybe he Dems have some kind of plan in the works, but none of this makes any sense. If they didn’t want this vote why did they allow it? Why did Durbin, the majority whip, vote for it? He was surely in the know if this is part of some grand plan.
At this point the most reasonable answer would seem to be simply that the Dems are only marginally less nuts than the Reps. But I’ll be happy to be embarrassed when they reveal the fruits of their parliamentary brilliance.
My view is both Pelosi and Reid are taking flak for Obama.
Pelosi gave Obama political cover on the torture issue. She was put through the ritual humiliation machine for daring to criticize our great ‘terror fighters’. Obama was then portrayed as a great and wise centrist by the traditional media and it’s a win win for centrist Dems (crimes are swept under the rug so they don’t have to do anything about it which would piss off the Cheney dead enders but it kinda looks like the party opposes these crimes–or some in the party do anyway–so the ‘hard left’ critiques are muted–hey, what do you expect? Obama said he’s against the crimes he just doesn’t have the political power to do anything about it . . . ).
Then Reid joins the GOP to attack from the right and Obama will get to appear like the centrist again. I expect him to sound like the reasonable centrist tomorrow in his big speech where he says he’s for the constitution but that public opinion and prudence only allow him to take symbolic half-steps. The effect will be the same as with the Pelosi dustup. The ‘hard left’ is muted and the media will proclaim Obama the great centrist leader that strikes the perfect balance between civil liberties and fightin’ terra’.
It’s people like you and me that are getting bamboozled. We are getting played. They have no intention of actually doing the right thing and following the constitution. It’s clear who the Democrats care more about. They care more about this mythical conservative American that is petrified of bogeymen and wants to start wars all over the world and violate the rules of war and get rid of centuries-old civil liberties. The Democrats think they can try to cater to that vote and at the same time hold on to the votes of people like you and me.
And us lefties will be undercut and taken out the second Obama sees a political opportunity to do so.
They are playing us for suckers and I for one am done with them. Screw Reid and double screw Obama and triple screw the Democratic Trojan horse they rode in on.
They are cowards willing to throw away our liberty because they are afraid of traitorous war criminals like Dick Cheney. Instead of trying Dick Cheney in a court of law Obama is letting him dictate the terms of the political debate.
And us liberals will be effectively neutered as well–give Obama credit for that. We will get nothing but contempt and then told to be grateful to Obama for trying as hard as he’s been trying. It’s a win win for Dick Cheney and Obama alike.
Liberals really are a bunch of suckers to keep supporting these cowardly Democrats that are clearly taking them for a ride.
Durbin didn’t vote for it.
Oops. That’s what I meant.
And Burris did. Burris is a machine hack through and through. WTF? I can’t reconcile the Durbin (good) and the Burris (bad) votes. What did the Daley Machine want and why did they care?