- As someone who spends a lot of time on the official web
sites of our U.S. Senators, I can tell you without hesitation that if one
of them casts a vote they are proud of, a press release will be up faster
than George Felix Allen can spit out a racial slur.
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- Yet the 12 Democrats who checked their consciences at
the Senate cloakroom and voted in favor of the Bush Administration's torture
bill this week, have almost nothing to say about their votes. In case you
haven't seen the roster of who voted with Republicans on this, here they
are:
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- · Thomas Carper (D-DE)
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- · Tim Johnson (D-SD)
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- · Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
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- · Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)
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- · Joe Lieberman (D-CT)
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- · Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
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- · Bill Nelson (D-FL)
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- · Ben Nelson (D-NE)
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- · Mark Pryor (D-AR)
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- · Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
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- · Ken Salazar (D-CO)
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- · Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
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- Of these, only four have issued press releases commenting
on their vote and, amazingly, those who are talking spend most of the time
sounding apologetic for a vote they obviously know they should not have
cast.
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- "I think there are some unknown constitutional issues
and it may take a review by the Supreme Court before we really know whether
this approach has towed the line in terms of protecting the civil-liberties
of American citizens or whether it has gone over the line," said Tim
Johnson (D-SD), in a brief statement that can only leave us wondering why
the hell he voted for it then.
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- Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) expresses a whole bunch of
concerns as well and yet voted to make Bush Torturer-in-Chief anyway.
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- "The bill I voted for today was the best bill we
could reasonably expect in this highly charged political environment,"
said Salazar. "Due to the many controversial and far-reaching implications
of this bill, I believe it would be appropriate to force Congressional
review of this bill in five years. I have concerns with this bill, but
on balance it meets my personal view of what America needs to get the job
done."
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- But some things never change, and here was the biggest
DINO (Democrat in name only) in the Senate, Nebraska's Ben Nelson crowing
about what a wonderful vote he cast and making this strange statement:
"This compromise goes a long way in protecting the principles of the
Geneva Conventions and establishes a standard of treatment that the world
will follow."
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- Yeah, I'm sure most other countries are gathering right
now to rewrite their laws to follow our sterling example.
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- Finally, we have Joe Lieberman, who has a press release
announcing his vote and setting the bar awfully low for what it takes for
him to follow George W. Bush.
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- "I voted for this bill because I believe it is better
than the Administration's original proposal to respond to the Supreme Court's
Hamdan decision," said Lieberman. "I would have much preferred
the bill we reported out of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and I
supported amendments to this bill because they addressed concerns I had.
I regret that they were rejected by the Senate."
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- But Joe clearly did not regret it enough to vote the
right way on the torture bill.
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- There's currently a big argument going on in the Progressive
community on the tension between calling Democrats on stances that are
so antithetical to what being a Democrat is supposed to mean and making
Republicans positively gleeful by bashing our own side six weeks before
a crucial election.
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- That's a tough call to make. But it seems reasonable
to question why, on a vote that is such a bellwether on where American
democracy stands in 2006, these 12 Senators cast deciding votes that they
were unsure about or that, deep down, they flat-out knew were wrong.
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- Democratic primary voters will certainly ask that question
when these Senators' terms have expired.
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- About author You can read more from Bob at www.BobGeiger.com
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