In a party line vote, congressional Democrats have barely averted having to debate the merits of presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich’s resolution to impeach the Vice President:
House Democrats on Tuesday narrowly managed to avert a bruising debate on a proposal to impeach Dick Cheney after Republicans, in a surprise maneuver, voted in favor of taking up the measure.
Republicans, changing course midway through a vote, tried to force Democrats into a debate on the resolution sponsored by longshot presidential candidate. The anti-war Ohio Democrat, in his resolution, accused Cheney of purposely leading the country into war against Iraq and manipulating intelligence about Iraq’s ties with Al-Qaida.
The GOP tactics reversed what had been expected to be an overwhelming vote to table, or kill, the resolution.
Midway through the vote, with instructions from the GOP leadership, Republicans one by one changed their votes from yes _ to kill the resolution _ to no, trying to force the chamber into a debate and an up-or-down vote on the proposal.
At one point there were 290 votes to table. After the turnaround, the final vote was 251-162 against tabling, with 165 Republicans voting against it.
“We’re going to help them out, to explain themselves,” said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas. “We’re going to give them their day in court.”
Democrats countered by offering a motion to refer the proposal to the House Judiciary Committee for further study, effectively preventing a debate on the House floor. That motion passed by a largely party-line vote of 218-194.
Bread and circuses you might say, and who would I be to argue with you? Except that the Congress has managed to strip war funding for Iraq from the military appropriations bill – a timely maneuver, considering the fact that hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives later, the fighting there is showing an appalling potential of ending favorably.
Senator Robert C. Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said:
Cap’n,
What do you expect from a group of men and women who likely couldn’t hold a real job if their lives depended on it?
The Late Will Rogers said it best “I don’t make jokes – I just watch the government and report the facts”
I find it very interesting that several of the bill’s co-sponsors voted to table the resolution. Here they insist on bringing up this stupid bill, and then they vote to table it. I guess it’s because they don’t want to have to debate the falsehoods in the resolution.
As far as the Democrat’s stance on Iraq, I’ve only got one word for you… treason.
Jim C
The time has come the Walrus said…….
In the meantime I will make a challenge to you. Guess how many times I will ride the MTR and I will donate 5 dollars a time in your name to Valour IT.-for the Navy team. Go for it and help make me spend money. Guesses have to be posted in the comment…..
And they wonder why the Prez says they aren’t doing anything worthy of their positions. Yep, this sure helps to get the DoD funds moving….
Idiots.
One more valient effort to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. What awful people…..and the dummies that keep them elected.
“In truth, both the elite Left and the elite non-Left believe that someone will always be able to save their bacon no matter what they do” –Wretchard
I think it funny that the Republicans changed their votes to have the debate ~ that left the Democrats scranbling to get the votes to table the resolution.
Masterful. Someone was thinking ahead here. Now the Democrats are the ones stalling on impeachment proceedings. Their nutroots base must love that!
As an aside, it looks like someone convinced Kucinich that Cheney has to go first; otherwise if the President gets impeached, then Cheney becomes President.
Hoist on their own petards.
How cool is that?
(Hmmm ~ the timestamp on the comments is still off an hour. Interesting…must be Y2K in ‘07 in action. [ICSFTH] Oh yeah, thank Congress for this one. Feh.)
A wise, cough, teacher, cough, from Idaho (I presume), said “Well, you can make the facts say pretty much anything you want.” I think really what he meant to say was something like ” Don’t confuse me with the facts”, a totally different proposition. I give you Exibit A. As for Exibit B, I think Senator Byrds’ total disregard for the Facts as to what is happening now in Iraq, as demonstrated by the graphs above and his inane comments as Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee prove he is incapable of properly discerning reality or perhaps he’s just a partisan hack, naw, couldn’t be.
Either that, Mark, or he’s passed into senility. How old is he now? 105?
Treason? For having a different view of events? For daring to speak in opposition to an ill conceived war plan and less well conceived post war plan? For calling the “evidence” offered by the President and Vice President in support of invading Iraq false and misleading? For seeking to hold the Administration accountable for the 1000s of lives lost in support of a lie? Did I miss it or did the PATRIOT Act repeal the First Amendment too?
[...] If correct, it appears that Speaker Pelosi and the Defeatocrats in the House are gearing up to force a retreat just when things are looking up in Iraq. [...]