Republican Hypocrite Caucus Keeps George Bush's War Going

THE NATION

A night of debate about the war in Iraq yielded two results:

1. Limited progress on getting an honest up-or-down vote on whether to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq on a schedule that might finish before the end of George Bush's presidency.

2. Confirmation that many Senate Republicans who delight in holding press conferences to talk about what's wrong with Bush's war are, in fact, the primary facilitators of that war's continuation.

The cloture vote on whether to allow consideration of an amendment to begin withdrawing troops needed the support of 60 senators.

Only 52 senators voted to get serious about establishing an exit strategy by opening debate on a proposal from Michigan Senator Carl Levin and Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed to begin withdrawing troops within 120 days on a time line that would be completed by April, 2008.

The good news, as Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold noted, is that "a majority of the Senate backed binding legislation with a firm end date to redeploy our troops from Iraq. This shows how far we've come since August 2005 when I became the first Senator to propose a deadline to bring the mistake in Iraq to an end.".....