The House and the Senate are well into the debate, but all the drama is in the Senate. House Democratic leaders have already pledged to back a bipartisan bill. The Senate Democrats are more unruly. Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) is backing a resolution, while Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) leads the opposition. In any case, a resolution is almost guaranteed to pass. To register his disapproval, Senator Byrd has pledged to filibuster the Senate vote, delaying it for up to 30 hours. A Congressional resolution is important not just for constitutional reasons, but because President Bush needs the backing of congress in his push for new UN Security Council resolutions. “This is one of the most consequential questions we will deal with for years to come,” said House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Illinois) via the AP. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) says the President had “failed to make a case for a unilateral and pre-emptive strike on Iraq. War is simply a failure of diplomacy.” House Majority Leader [redacted] Armey (R-Texas) finally got off the fence, endorsing the President’s plan after hand-wringing over the morality of a pre-emptive American strike. He finally decided that an American attack would not be pre-emptive at all, since the end of the Gulf War in 1992 was technically a cease-fire. Presidential hopeful Senator John Edwards came out strongly against the President’s effort, referring to his “gratuitous unilateralism.” Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Massacheusets) agrees, saying in the Senate that the President’s policy “flies in the face of international rules of acceptable behavior,” leaving America without “the moral legitimacy necessary to promote our values abroad.”
Slate points out that the Senate debate is being conducted in an almost completely empty room. Senator arrive to make their speech, and leave. They read each other’s remarks in the Congressional Record. This, says Slate, is “particularly galling.”
The Washington Post liked the exchange between Senator John Warner (R-Virginia) and Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) who “traded colorful references to history, the Constitution and other topics.” Much of the Post article covers Senator Warner’s responses to the opposition.
MSNBC gave Senator Byrd top billing for his filibuster, and provided these handy bulletpoints on the narrower compromise resolution pending in the Senate:
- Urge the United Nations to enforce strict new rules on inspecting Iraq and eliminating its weapons of mass destruction.
- Give the president the authority to act unilaterally if the United Nations failed to crack down on the Iraqi threat.
- Require the president to notify Congress, no later than 48 hours after commencing military action, on why diplomatic efforts were inadequate.
a technology job is no excuse 