The Detroit News is reporting that Knollenberg is going to vote NO on the House Resolution that supports the troops and opposes President Bush's escalation of the War in Iraq by sending over 21,000 more troops to the area.
Specifically, the resolution they are voting on this week reads as follows:
- Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That--
- (1) Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the members of the United States Armed Forces who are serving or who have served bravely and honorably in Iraq; and
- (2) Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.
The second part of the resolution says that Congress disapproves of Bush's escalation of the war in Iraq. By voting NO, Knollenberg is saying that he Supports Bush's plan to "Stay the Course" and just add more combat troops.
The vote is scheduled for Friday. Meanwhile, each member of the House has been alloted 5 minutes to explain their position on the vote.
Knollenberg hasn't spoken yet. Apparently Knollenberg isn't important enough within his own caucus to be allowed to speak within the first half of the debate.
Heck, Joe kNOllenberg even voted NO to even debate the resolution. (See Rollcall Vote #97.) kNOllenberg does not want to have an open or honest debate on the issue. Maybe because he realizes that his position is completely out of step with his constituents.
3 comments:
The Democrats prevented ALL DEBATE on JUST ABOUT ANYTHING DURING THE FIRST HUNDRED HOURS, and limited the budget debate to 30 minutes overall per side during discussion of budget issues, so your criticism of Joe on this one is laughable, even if it's correct (and previously, you said that everyone should have a pre-set opinion, so why debate).
And how long has this already been debated? That's important context in any cloture decision.
More fundamentally, your disaggregation of the bill into separate parts and the suggestion that Joe's No Vote means he "doesn't support the troops" is a fundamentally deceptive and intentional misuse of logic. The "support troops" clause is tied with the "disapprove of the decision of the president" clause. You might fairly say Joe "either" doesn't support one or he supports the other, but he doesn't necessarily on both.
This makes you a flat-out liar. Its dirty, dishonest. It's clear Joe supports the decision - or the Constitutional autonomy at the least, of the President's decision, and that he also supports the troops. If you want to criticize the war - I'd find many things to agree with you on (there are very conservative reasons to question the war). But this fundamentally dishonest and nasty rhetoric is over-the-top.
Chet,
The Democrats won the election. They are the majority. Get over it.
This isn't any different than what the Republican's did in November 2005 when they tried to push through their "cut and run" resolution. Actually that was worse -- that was a phony resolution that they were using for political purposes.
This is a real resolution. It asks every member of Congress whether they support the troops. It further asks whether they support escalating the war.
Every voter deserves to know how their Representative will vote on such an important issue.
Regardless of which way he votes, it is important that this information be made available to the voters.
And your logic doesn't hold -- if he votes no he is voting no on the provision regarding supporting the troops. That is not dishonest or deceptive. It is a fact.
And you might want to reread the Constitution -- you missed a few things there -- there is nothing in the Constitution granting the President "autonomy" in any of his decisions. He is one of three co-equal branches.
As a federalist perhaps you should actually read the federalist papers to see how the founders envisioned the "Commander in Chief" role.
I suggest Federalist 69 to start. http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/federal/fed69.htm. Federalist 74 also addresses the issue. You will note that even Hamilton -- the Founder who was most forceful about wanting a strong federal government doesn't give the President any more power than that of being a General on the ground.)
I'll give you a hint -- it wasn't with any autonomy. They just wanted to assign someone to handle the day to day operations. The rest of the authority lies with Congress.
Read Article I of the Constitution -- Congress has far more authority with respect to war and military activities. They just recognized that it wouldn't be a great idea to run a war by committee.
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