Wow, this is so lame…

Updated on October 2, 2007 By Ken Begg 19 Comments

So the latest Defense Department authorization bill yesterday passed overwhelmingly in the Senate, 92-3.  However, all four of the Senate Dems running for the presidential nomination (Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, and Joe Biden) made sure they were unavailable, so that they didn’t have to go on record on this issue by actually casting a vote.  Either that, or its an amazing coincidence that four of the five people who missed the vote just happened to fall into this rather select demographic.

What a bunch of cowards.  And yes, I’m sure many examples of Republicans doing similar things can be found.  However (aside from the fact that I hate the Reps about 7% less than the Dems, at best), there is something particularly craven about asking the people to make you the President of the United States while you do everything you can to fudge your intentions on what has to be the major issue of the day.  That’s just appalling, I don’t care what party you’re with. 

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  • Dan Coyle

    I get the feeling this is a case of some campaign managers telling them not to get in a Kerry “I voted for it before I voted against it” situation.

    Because listening to campaign managers worked so well in the last election.

    Silly of them all to miss it.

  • Look, if you’re going to run for office, you should have to make your votes and stand behind them, especially on real issue stuff (not so much the “We hereby commemorate…” piffle). Tactically, I have no doubt they did the ‘right’ thing, but it still bugs the hell out of me.

    Of course, this is really our fault. We could just refuse to vote for people who do stuff like this, but we don’t.

  • Dan Coyle

    Tactically, maybe, but behaving tactically didn’t win the last election for the Democrats and it won’t win this one. For or against, it should have been done. Against would have at least gotten some press.

  • David

    If these nitwits had any brains they’d vote against it to please their unwashed hippie base of parrots, and when they get flack for it from reasonable people they could claim that they were opposed to certain earmarks or something, and come off as halfway credible and responsible public stewards. Still disingenuous political maneuvering, sure, but at least it would give the public some credit for brains. As it is, the comtempt these people have for us is stunning.

    Besides, how many of us could get away with not showing up for work?

  • Ericb

    “Politics is like a pond, the scum rises to the top” – Bob Black.

  • bt

    Wow David, I guess I find it rather insulting that you are referring to me, and the roughly 60 percent of the voting public who supported the Democratic party in the last election as “unwashed hippie parrots”. Broad, sweeping generalizations don’t really make we want to consider any points made afterwards.

    Ken, I think you are both wrong and right here. I think you are wrong to single this out as indicative as anything telling whatsoever about the Dem front runners, because, as you stated yourself, both sides do stuff like this, and they do it all the time.

    However, you are correct in that it is our fault. Not necessarily because we support people who do things like this, but I think conversely because the absolute surest way to lose an election in this country is to actually tell the truth or to take a stand. Taking any stand that is remotely controversial will be hammered home against you time and again, and in all likelihood, isn’t going to net you anything.

    As evidence, and along the lines of the vote here, bear in mind during the 2004 election the Right, and notably Dick Cheney, kept telling anyone in earshot about how Kerry “voted against” every military project known to man. In reality, Kerry had voted against one version of the defense budgets, and some of these weapon systems were a (small) part of that budget (by the way, Cheney agreed with Kerry at that time), and voted FOR another version of the budget, which of course funded many of those same weapon systems. It didn’t stop the opposition from hammering him.

    Politicians are not stupid. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars figuring out what they can, and cannot do, to get themselves elected. Telling people you will lower their taxes, even if you have NO intention of doing so, will get you a lot more votes than telling people the money is going to have to come from somewhere. We don’t want the truth from candidates, and that has been proven over and over again.

    ” Abortions for some, tiny American flags for others! “

  • Well, it does tell me sometime about these Dem would-be candidates: They don’t deserve to be President. Just because that is probably also true of all the Republican would-be candidates, on this or other grounds, doesn’t alter that fact.

  • bt

    In a sense, Ken, I think we are agreeing. I’m not saying that because Republicans do it that it’s OK, I’m saying that since it is essentially universal amongst politicians, it’s somewhat pointless to single out those 4, or their actions as indicative of anything more than the fact they are running for office.

    Again, I’m pretty sure McCain, Thompson, Giuliani, and Romney did not show up at a debate sponsored by the Black Caucus, because they thought the crowd was going to be too mean to them (Tavis Smiley was not amused). Along those lines, if these 4 can’t handle hostile questions from the Black Caucus, how are they equipped to run our nation?

    Condemning specific politicians for being politically cautious is like railing at the sun for rising in the East. If dodging tough questions/votes during an election is proof that a candidate is incapable of leading our country, then my guess is we are going to have to chuck out everyone but Kucinich and Paul. Oh, and maybe Allan Keyes.

  • I don’t know that I’d subject myself to a purely hostile audience either, so I’ll give the guys a pass on that one. And frankly, *nobody* should be appearing before the Black Caucus, they’re a joke.

    And this, in my opinion, goes waaaay beyond political caution. Either the war is going well enough that the Dem senators feel they need to vote to continue it (as the vast majority of them did), or else they really, truly do believe it’s lost, and they are duty-bound to vote against further funding. In either case, they need to be required to put themselves on the voting record about it, so they can be held accountable or be credited as things turn out. And this isn’t just another issue. I can’t think of a single matter even close to being this important right now; nor ones that these particular four spend more time trying to make hay of.

    Meanwhile, you simply can’t conflate questions and vote. One is something you volunteer for, the other is your job and your duty. If you want to be in the Congress, show up for the freaking votes.

  • bt

    Ken, I think you just proved my point for me, as far as why they would not vote either way for this bill. It’s because a vote can be construed ALMOST any way you want. You said “Either the war is going well enough that the Dem senators feel they need to vote to continue it (as the vast majority of them did), or else they really, truly do believe it’s lost, and they are duty-bound to vote against further funding”. So, in your opinion, a vote on the bill comes down to a vote as to how the Iraq war is going. A yea vote means you think the war is going well, a nay vote means you think it’s going poorly.

    Logically speaking, that CAN’T be only deciding factor, as there is simply NO WAY 95 members of the senate believe the war is going “well enough” to fund it. Clearly there are other reasons to vote “yea” on this bill, unless you now think that Kennedy, Durbin and especially Jim Webb think the war is going well.

    And that is exactly my point. If Clinton votes “yes”, her opponent can say exactly what you have said, and get her by claiming that she thought the war was going well enough to vote for the funding bill, so she has no right to complain about the war later. If she votes no, of course that means she hates the troops and wants to take away their helmets and bullets. THAT is why, in a vote that had NO CHANCE of going the other way, they didn’t vote. It would have changed nothing, but would have given their opponents a club to use on them.

  • To be exact, they believe it’s going well enough that the public will not continence it being de-funded. And that’s clearly the case, or nearly every single Democrat wouldn’t have voted for it. After all, it’s not like the entire party could take a powder like the Presidential contenders did.

    Believe me, I fully understand that Hillary and the rest couldn’t have voted against funding without taking a serious knock in a general election, and couldn’t have voted for it without having to stand up to the Moveon.org crowd.

    Even so, they should have done one or the other. Again, this isn’t an issue one should be allowed to be silent on. Bush has taken a beating on this for years now, and taken it without attempting to fudge where he stood on the matter. It’s time for everyone seeking his office to do the same. Giving your opponents clubs should mandated if you want public office, at least on the truly important issues of the day.

  • RIch

    First, bt:

    “Ken, I think you just proved my point for me, as far as why they would not vote either way for this bill. It’s because a vote can be construed ALMOST any way you want.”

    Um, sir or madam (or madam or sir, if you prefer): It doesn’t matter if a “vote can be construed ALMOST any way you want”. These people are US Senators, elected by their constituents to, you know, vote on stuff. They have an obligation to vote on matters put before the US Senate regardless of whether or not those votes can hurt their future ambitions. In other words, every Democractic candidate who is also a member of the US Senate dodged their civic duty to further their own personal ambitions. In other words, they are all morally bankrupt (or, as Ken put it, lame).

    Ken:
    “I don’t know that I’d subject myself to a purely hostile audience either,”

    And yet you continue to write reviews.*

    On a more serious note, the Republicans did not fare much better, batting only .500 on “voting for the Defense Department authorization bill”. Long-long-long shot Sam Brownback voted for it, while merely long-long shot John McCain did not show up.

    * – I kid, Ken, I kid. I flat out love your reviews.

  • Pip

    There are things that I accept in politicians (“accept” meaning they get my worthless vote) and there are things that I don’t. This measure of acceptance of insincerity is partly a function of my desire to back a reasonable mainstream pol instead of the pantheon of unelectable idealists (and perhaps that is a weakness) and acceptance that the number of people who elect a president dictate that the campaigns that elect them must be dumbed down to near meaninglessness.

    What these four politicians have done is something that I do not accept. Now, I expected this from Clinton. If someone made a list of factors that would make me less likely to vote for them, she would check more boxes than anybody outside of prison. She is the absolute bottom of the barrel and sad proof to me that this country is becoming less and less something to really care about. (What a desparately sad thing to admit.) It seems each president we have had since I was around has been worse than the one before. Each one more dented and flawed. Each one a grade lower…A, B, C, the current D, and (God help us) the upcoming Empress F and VP Richardson.

    I halfway expected such chicanery from Dodd. I was surprised at Biden.

    I did *not* expect it from Obama at all. He certainly would have my vote in the primary and I am deeply disappointed if this is true and there is no good explanation.

    Edwards has always struck me as an empty suit, the Dem version of Romney. But at least he has stuck to his guns on the current money pit in the Middle East.

    The system has evolved so that they’re bound to have to proceed with some measure of caution in an election. But this is clearly unacceptable. Just because the other side does unacceptable things should not stop us from talking about how unacceptable this particular, discrete episode was.

  • bt

    Ken, as far as public support goes, the public strongly (60 percent or more) supports a bill that funds war, but only if tied to withdrawal timetables. I’ve not seen a poll that asks if it should be defunded if there are no timetables, but my guess is that it would have quite a bit of support. I don’t think a vote for a bill as large and complex as this one can be summed up as a referendum just on the issue of progress in Iraq, but you can rest assured that politicians on both sides will try to do just that.

    Rich and Pip, my argument is not that Senators should not vote, simply that a failure to vote is neither unusual (especially when the outcome is so obvious), nor indicative of some deeper insight to a candidate’s character. It’s sadly a result of our flawed political discourse, where sound bites and spin completely obliterate substance and true debate.

  • “[M]y argument is not that Senators should not vote, simply that a failure to vote is neither unusual….”

    I agree, and thus am I pissed off.

    “…nor indicative of some deeper insight to a candidate’s character.”

    And here we DEFINATELY disagree. A coward is a coward, no matter how ‘smart’ his cowardice is.

    And the public opinion on the war is changing quickly now that the outlook on the war continues to get better. So don’t be too sure the majority of the public wants us out before we’ve finished the job, and be less sure as time moves along.

  • bt

    Ken, if I grant you that the fact that they did not vote is truly a sign of cowardice, I would have to say that well over half of congress is full of cowards. Certainly McCain has missed a huge number of votes, as did Kerry in 2004, and Lieberman in 2000. I can’t tell you that ALL congressmen in a situation similar to these Dems would do the same thing, but I would feel comfortable saying a vast majority of them would. Of course I can’t prove that. You call it cowardice, I call it smart politics. Sadly, it’s probably at least a bit of both, but that is the situation we find ourselves in.

    What I can prove is that the public’s opinion toward the war in Iraq is NOT quickly changing. According to an AP poll highlighted in this E&P piece http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003642734

    This was from less than 3 weeks ago, and it states “NEW YORK Gen. David Petraeus’ report to Congress and President Bush’s nationally televised address have had little impact on Americans’ distaste for the Iraq war and their desire to withdraw U.S. troops, polls show.”

    What I think HAS happened, is that a slide has been stopped, in that public support, even among Republicans, was cratering before the build up to the Patraeus report. That stopped. But it did not start moving the bar the other way.

  • If you’re thinking I’m befuddled at the idea that half (only half) of congress is cowards, then you underestimate me, sir. However, I will say that this particular vote, on the most divisive issue of the day–an issue that these candidates themselves strive day after day to make more divisive yet–looms much larger than most.

    And if you are right on support for the war (and I don’t think you are–I can also point to polls, and certainly the President’s numbers are rather higher than Congress’ right now), then the Democrats are retarded as well as cowardly, since presumably voters would flock to them if they pushed pulling out of Iraq ASAP. And yet of the Democratic presidential canditates, only Chris Dodd, a man with zero chance of winning, is willing to say he would definately pull our soldiers out by the end of their first terms.

    And, in the end, that doesn’t even matter. These guys should put their friggin’ votes on the record, no matter what side they support.

  • bt

    We are a bit off topic here, but I’m pretty sure the reason that Congress’s numbers are lower than the Presidents can be directly attributable to the fact that they HAVEN’T made any progress on getting the US out of Iraq. The Republicans hate Congress because they are Democratic, and the Democrats hate Congress because they are not doing what the Dems elected them to do. If Congress were actually doing anything to get us out, and their numbers were slipping, I think that would back up your point, but since they have not, I think it reinforces the poll numbers that AP put out.

    As to your first points, if the vote ended up 92-3, then by definition, they can’t be debating the most divisive issue of the day. And if you think a majority of congress are cowards, I’m not going to argue with you, but rather restate my original point, that ducking this vote is neither unusual or noteworthy.

  • “I’m not going to argue with you, but rather restate my original point, that ducking this vote is neither unusual or noteworthy.”

    And to restate my original point, from the post itself: That is exactly the problem.