The Final World On Lieberman-Kyl

(1) The resolution was non-binding and substantively different from the 2002 use of force resolution. Lieberman-Kyl has zero authority; it expresses senses, not findings.

(2) Obama's main substantive argument is about power and authority: should Congress give President Bush even a hint -- and Obama, looking at the intent of the initial sponsors, sees such a hint -- that the commander in chief has their permission to launch military strikes or continue to justify a large troop presence in Iraq on the basis of Iran's intervention in the war?

(3) Clinton's main argument is that she is a senator, and according to Obama's logic, anything that comes up for a vote could be interpreted or warped so as to give President Bush's actions the imprimateur of legitimacy. Clinton is on the Armed Services Committee; Iran's Revolutionary Guards are attacking U.S. soldiers; the biggest beneficiary of the Iraq war being ran, it's simply reality -- as Obama himself acknowledged -- that Iran's actions will in some way factor into decisions about when and where and how fast to move troops out. Clinton turned a sketchy resolution into a much better one, one that wasn't bellicose and gave no hints or winks to the White House. And, oh -- Obama didn't show up and argue this during the vote itself.

Comments

Sen. Reid first told everyone on the Senate floor that he was going to "hold" the vote on that bill until the following week. Obama had campaign work in New Hampshire and was enroute. He got a call enroute saying that the bill was going to be voted on and he couldn't make it on time to vote but he did make a statement to the press before the vote that he would not have voted yes to that bill.

I think you need to make this clear as crystal in your reporting. There was a reason Obama didn't show up to argue against it and it should be noted Sen. Reid's son works for the Clinton campaign.

Thank you.

-Rhoda

Posted by Rhoda | October 12, 2007 3:11 PM

Rhoda, save your breath. Marc and others are going to keep repeating that fact without context no matter how many times that he (and others) are reminded of that fact.

And Marc:

The issue isn't whether Clinton believes that it gives Bush authority to attack Iran, it's whether Bush thinks so. I think she's concerned enough about that possiblity that she decided to co-sponsor the Webb Amendment 4 days after the debate. I mean, you don't need that amendment if you don't think Bush could possible view KLA as tacit approval to "deal" with Iran.

Posted by Keith | October 12, 2007 3:16 PM

Also, Sen. Obama DID issue a statement on this vote and took a position PRIOR to the outcome which his vote could not have changed. He went on the record. This too should be noted.

Posted by Rhoda | October 12, 2007 3:17 PM

Keith:

The issue isn't whether Bush believes that it gives him authority to attack Iran, it's whether he can spin it so that just enough people who don't pay any attention to details will believe that he believed it.

Posted by Rick | October 12, 2007 4:01 PM

You say:

"Iran's Revolutionary Guards are attacking U.S. soldiers"

Where, exactly, does this come from? Certainly Iran does not have our soldiers' best interests at heart, and it's probably acting through covert means to spin the situation to its advantage. This, however, does not mean that the Revolutionary Guards are "attacking" our soldiers. You blithely state this as a matter of incontrovertible fact, when in fact it's central to the entire controversy. (Insane neoconservatives are spinning any Iranian misbehavior as pretext for war.)

Posted by Matt Rognlie | October 12, 2007 4:04 PM

"...think she's concerned enough about that possiblity that she decided to co-sponsor the Webb Amendment 4 days after the debate."

Great insight, Keith! That's exactly how Obama should hit back. Even Webb said her actions to co-sponsor his amendment, which she didn't even bother to notify him of in advance of her press release, was a "corrective measure" for her initial vote.

Posted by Dawn | October 12, 2007 5:27 PM

Obama has said he believe the Iranian Revolutionary Guard does sponsor terrorist activity but that this "sense of the senate" should have been divorced from other elements in the resolution Clinton supported.

Those other elements concern how we should structure our forces in Iraq to "protect" against the Irani threat. Obama says we should not give the President any hint that he can keep up the war with Iraq in order to counter Iran. The two issues should be treated separately. I agree. Clinton does not and like Bush, she will find any excuse to maintain being a hawk and using force where hard and soft diplomacy needs to be given a chance first.

Posted by Bruce | October 12, 2007 8:49 PM

You don't think that demanding a foreign country's army be designated as a terrorist organization on the basis of exactly zero credible evidence is bellicose? Really?

Posted by Some dude | October 12, 2007 9:51 PM

"Lieberman-Kyl has zero authority; it expresses senses, not findings."

You're naive.

Bush and Cheney will give it any authority they need to give it.

Give them an non-binding inch and they'll take a tactical nuclear mile. You're talking about people who torture, after all.

Posted by Jon H | October 13, 2007 12:21 AM

" the biggest beneficiary of the Iraq war being [I]ran"

Well, DUH! Maybe Kyl-Lieberman should put forward a new bill declaring that water is a terrorist because it's wet.

Too bad the lunatics, religious fanatics, and idiots who supported this fiasco didn't think for half a second in 2002 and put a halt to it.

Maybe the Bushies thought Jesus would come down and rapture away the Christians after we got rid of Saddam, so Iran wouldn't be an issue.

Criminals and idiots. The lot of them. God knows why they're in government and on editorial pages and magazine staffs, and not in jail or repeating elementary school.

Posted by Jon H | October 13, 2007 12:29 AM

I'd also love to know where the recieved wisdom that Iran is behind the IEDs that kill our troops is coming from, as there seems to be more disagreement among our intelligence community about this claim than there was about Saddam's magically-disappearing WMDs.

Before Hillary and her apologists get all up about how Iran is doing this-and-that some fact-checking seems in order. There's no reason to assume that Hillary's any more correct than she was about Saddam's WMDs, and every reason to believe that she's adopting the posture she thinks makes her look tough regardless of the facts.

Posted by far coast | October 13, 2007 2:10 AM

Final world? More like final fantasy. What findings did the resolution express in 2002? Erroneous findings, right? So how can a resolution expressing erroneous findings be substantively compared to a resolution expressing the sense of the senate when the first has no basis in reality and the other has no basis of fact? If sense of the senate resolution is as toothless as you say then why do the dems keep offering them? How do you hold the senate accountable for expressive resolutions that cannot be fact-checked that cannot be refuted that cannot actually be made sense of at all? Marc you are too smart not to know that the damage was already done when kyl and lieberman got on the floor of the senate and made their speeches, except at that point still no one cared what kyl thinks--remember the immigration bill--and no one trusted lieberman--the guy doesn't even have the support of his own party--until the purported frontrunner for the democratic nomination, the only person who could pop the lead balloon that was this amendment decided to use her political capital instead to make changes that again no one is going to read. Once bitten, twice shy, I suppose, but just like in 2002 she is too cautious, her trapeze act in the mind of the electorate too precarious to take a firm stand on the issue. She is too scared that she is not going to win, and she wants so badly to win, that she fails to recognize when the chips are down and say no to the insanity, like the eldest daughter of an alcoholic who goes along with the lie because in some ways the fiction is more important than the facts. Sorry, Marc, for all your wishful thinking, the damage was done when she voted yeah. The american public--when they bother to believe anything a politician tells them--prefers its lies in short declarative sentences whether they constitute expressions of will or factual findings. Kyl-Lieberman was a success. It was enough to say "iran is our enemy." Now all we need is a smoking gun. doesn't have to be a mushroom cloud; could just be some graphic video of a poor kid getting his leg blown off by an iranian ied before bush can say well we should do something about this and hey even hillary agrees with me. opponents will just sound shrill and naive, somewhere above outright treason but well beneath perino's contempt. reason will be swept aside as a bunch of legislators rush to vote for the use of force so they can look more patriotic than their rivals back in their districts. after all, a war with iran has all of the benefits of making its backers look tough in the war on terror (now that iranians have been added to the list) with none of the nasty track record from iraq. no no one is going to fact check; you fools can blog for weeks on how hillary would not actually agree to use of force in iran, while she sits silently by like the cat who caught the canary, and still no one would bother to notice because kyl-lieberman has already greased the wheels already made it a foregone conclusion, already got the pr contracts negotiated up on madison avenue, already boosted third quarter earnings. trying to stop that machine now is like stepping in front of a tank--even the dem nominee won't be able to do this after they voted for the bill. [senator kerry nods silently in agreement]. and when the iranian people are tired of sorties over their air space they will probably conclude (wrongly) that their president has a point and the americans are bad and once again we have a nightmare of our own making and what was onece just a fiction has become a fact and all it will take is one bomb for the people in the u.s. to get sick of it and leave israel to its own devices which would be a shame. so no it is not whether iran will have a role in an eventual draw down it is what role. so please, shelve the prattle about how this is nonbinding and much better and less bellicose (what the hell does that mean anyway) than what it would have been or your less than perfectly contextual potshots at obama (like his nonvote has anything to do with what is going on here).

Posted by jacksparrow | October 13, 2007 4:03 PM

Kyl-Leiberman was a disgrace, and Joe should be impeached or at least be drummed out of the Democratic Party. He is beneath contempt.

That said, quibbling over what the vote "gives" Cheney and his chimp is silly. Cheney can pick up the phone today, right now, and order a bombing raid on Iran, Turkey, North Korea, or Venezuela. The theofascists he has installed in the military will "just do it." And once it's done, there we'll be, with Cheney sneering above the noise, "So, what are you going to DO about it, dipwads?"

Posted by Mick McAllister | October 14, 2007 10:55 AM

Jacksparrow and Mick nailed it. All this war mongering has to stop. Sadly, both the Dems and the thugs on the other side will go along with anything as long as the money keeps coming from the corporations who profit from all this madness. We now need term limits ( I never thought I would endorse this thinking)as conversely most pols from the past cared more about the countries middle class more than the rich money lobbyist from on Wall St. Sadly, all these people today in congress think they inherited their positions and that they should meaning WILL, stay there for life. Unless of coarse, they move up the political food chain to another higher office or better yet, a DC lobbyist job. Will the American people ever wake up? I, sadly will probably not see it in my lifetime. The masses will only get it when this country finally goes BOOM economically, at worst and the breadlines are a daily ritual. What a country... (sic)

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