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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2005-12-21

Snatching Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory

to be considered an addendum to commentary of "No Senators Need Apply"

Senate Democrats succeeded on Wednesday in killing a Republican plan to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that was part of a massive $453 billion wartime military spending bill that later passed.

and . . .

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday ended a high-stakes impasse and voted to extend for six months key provisions of the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act set to expire in 10 days.

And I was just starting to feel optimistic that the GOP Senate leadership was starting to show a little real leadership. Tacking ANWR into the Defense Appropriations Bill was a master stroke which also happens to be the correct thing to do; and there is no way that the Democrats were going to live down filibustering the Patriot Act. And keep that in mind: THEY COULDN"T KILL THE PATRIOT ACT, ALL THEY COULD DO WAS BLOCK IT! So the GOP was in good shape with the Dems deciding to take the completely untenable position of blocking the funding for the DOD in a time of war and blocking the Patriot Act during . . . well, a time of war.

AND BILL FRIST BLINKED!!! How does a Majority Leader with a 55-44 advantage continue finding new and infuriating ways to lose?

So we're where we've been all along: our dependence on middle eastern oil is firmly codified while we're blocked from finding our own resources, and the Dems have managed to push six months further down the road the approval of something they hate BUT WHICH WORKS. This lets them make it a huge fundraising thing for the mid-terms, while essentially accomplishing nothing for the country.

Nice Work, Senators Frist, Specter, DeWine, Sununu, et al. Way to go.

Anybody want to place bets on the over/under for donations to the NRSC over the next week? The line begins at $1500.
Posted by: Michael / 12/21/2005 09:24:00 PM

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