RK ARCHIVE - Webb Votes Against Mukasey, Warner Votes for Him

Hmmmm...just a coincidence that they're all running for President? Feel free to discuss.

Comments

Webb in the Senate (Evan M - 11/9/2007 10:27:08 AM)

Someone from The Establishment needs to get this guy to drink the kool-aid, and quick!

- Talking about economic disparity and income inequality - doesn't he realize that puts precious corporate contributions at risk?

- Standing up for Virginia's native Americans - Doesn't he know that we try to BURY our past in Virginia?

- Advocating equality in troop rotation times - But that let's the terrorists win!

- Campaigning for Democrats - but that's not very nice to Republicans!

...

God, we lucked out last year.

Where are the priorities? (TheGreenMiles - 11/9/2007 10:51:40 AM)

Clinton, Obama, and McCain can all point to millions of Americans who say they want them to be president. But Biden and Dodd are dodging their senatorial responsibilities in solely egotistical pursuits. And this vote is far from the only duty Dodd has shirked.

Cowardice is not presidential (Eric - 11/9/2007 10:54:41 AM)

It is both revealing and pathetic that 2 Presidential front runners and 3 also-rans (or 3 and 2 depending on where you count McCain) lacked the courage to take a stand on a fairly important matter. Or maybe they were "too busy" to make the vote?

Doesn't matter.

What does matter is that this says they're putting campaigning before leadership, which is really not what need right now. Who else is running again??????

Nose count (Silence Dogood - 11/9/2007 11:01:23 AM)

All Presidential Candidates--even Dodd--can and should feel free to continue campaigning for America's future if the whip has a solid nose count demonstrating that their presense will not actually make a difference in the confirmation process. Mukasey got three votes over the 50 he needed to win confirmation; if Dodd or anyone else had shown up, it just would have meant the final tally would have been 53-41 instead of 53-40.

Instead of complaining about Presidential candidates showing up to cast symbolic but meaningless votes, let's talk about the Democrats who voted yes and helped get Mukasey over the top.

Don't dodge on Dodd (TheGreenMiles - 11/9/2007 11:06:50 AM)

Josh Marshall:

So let's run through a little arithmetic. Mukasey went through last night by a vote of 53-40. Forty, of course, is a pretty significant number in terms of sustaining a filibuster. So who were the Dems who didn't show up? Were they likely 'no' on Mukasey votes? I would say so: Biden, Clinton, Dodd and Obama. The presidentials. It's true that many people will vote 'no' on a floor vote who won't vote the same way to sustain a filibuster. And in the best of all worlds I don't think we should be operating in a world where the need to get to 60 votes is the norm rather than the exception. But the Republicans are not letting anything through without 60 votes in the Congress. So I find it very odd how this went down.
I stick with what I suggested the last couple days. This could have been blocked. Had one of the presidentials -- say, Dodd -- announced that he would have forced a cloture vote, the others would have scurried to catch up.

Why John Marshall is wrong (Silence Dogood - 11/9/2007 12:45:02 PM)

John Marshall makes the conclusion that 40 votes is a significant number for sustaining a filibuster, primarily by going through the difficult math of 100 votes - 60 votes (needed for cloture) = 40 votes. He's wrong: 60 is still the significant number. There were conceivably only 53 votes available to override a cloture vote. What this means is that if Jim Webb wanted to filibuster Mukasey, he could have, with reasonable confidence that they wouldn't be able to shut him down.

So! Are we going to go lynch ALL of the Democrats in the Senate now, even the ones who voted no?

If you're mad that Democrats writ large didn't filibuster, that's fine. I respect that. But making this entirely about Dodd is more than just a little ridiculous, and frankly it's beneath some of the thoughtfulness you've shown at other times.

Good for Webb (aprilac - 11/9/2007 11:21:07 AM)

I am tremendously saddened that so many in Congress voted for this man despite his refusal to engage in the "restatement of the obvious"--that waterboarding is torture. Most who voted for him seem to be justifying their actions by using the guise that the problem can be fixed legislatively. (And that this man has said he would not challenge such legislation.) So we aren't going to require ethics and morality from ALL BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT? It's o.k. for one branch to be out to lunch, so long as another branch can fix it? So let's confirm someone who obviously isn't qualified because under our system of checks and balances we can try to keep him and the Executive Branch in line with legislation? I would think that members of Congress who oppose the current strategy in Iraq would have realized how dangerous such a perspective is...To not require devotion to our Constitution and common sense morality of EVERYONE in ALL BRANCHES of government is a huge mistake and very, very dangerous. I wonder if this man's confirmation will be looked back upon by historians as one step among others in a progression toward a very dark period in this country's history.

feeding the myth (Veritas - 11/9/2007 11:39:31 AM)

arghh...Presidential politics for you, democrats don't want to look weak on defense, even though Jim Webb former Secretary of the Navy can vote against it and look strong on defense at the same time! I never understood why being a democrat is supposed to make one less knowledgeable on defense issues. McCain also succumbs to presidential pressure, by not voting. Everyone knows he is against tourture being an former POW, but he didn't want to look bad to the GOP base by casting a vote that could have blocked Mukasey.

I wrote to Webb to thank him for his NO vote (LAS - 11/9/2007 1:00:20 PM)

What I don't get is why Schumer and Feinstein gave him a pass without demanding any concessions from him. I mean, the least they could have asked for was a investigation into what went down in the former AG's office, right?