Whew!

by digby

I just heard that both Clinton and Obama voted against the supplemental. So, despite it being a grave disappointment that it passed without timetables (or anything useful) at least we won’t have to listen to the Republicans taunting Democrats for the next year or more about how the top candidates refused to use the power of the purse if they thought the war was such a bad idea. I was already exhausted by the prospect of listening to them drone on and on about “voting for it while being against it.”

This is clean. And it happens to be the right thing to do too, so good for them.

Update: I think Kevin is right about this. One of the biggest problems confronting us is that the political class relies on the punditocrisy’s flawed historical interpretation of events. Gingrich didn’t lose in the 1995 government stand-off because the president had the bully pubpit; he lost because his reasoning for the shut-down was unpopular. he wanted to cut social programs and that wasn’t supported. The press just couldn’t wrap their minds around the idea the idea that the citizens of the United States might just be able to understand things without the lens of personality and sophomoric turf battles the insiders use. They saw the whole thing as some sort of battle of the titans that Clinton won because he had a “single message” and Ginrich had to put up with a fractious caucus. It didn’t occur to any of them that the people might have supported Clinton because they liked the substance of what he was saying. Who gives a damn about substance, right?

Update II:

Here are the statements from Kucinich, Edwards, Clinton, Dodd, Richardson and Obama.

Biden voted for it.

Gravel is for immediate withdrawal.

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