From
Taylor Marsh:
Snip…
From Senators Jack Reed, Kennedy and Clinton to many faithful Democrats,
we all let Senator Harry Reid know he'd said something that just wasn't going to fly. It's been corrected. Many likely want me to leave it at that but I simply cannot.
When Senators Kerry and Feingold put forth their plan in the Senate to get out of Iraq by July 2007, Reid scheduled the debate after sunset. He wanted no part of redeployment timelines and neither did many other Democrats. Now don't get me wrong, Reid is a smart, dedicated leader who knows what he's doing, but he's not been for a timeline at any point until his post yesterday. What Reid voted for was
reports on progress:
To clarify and recommend changes to the policy of the United States on Iraq and to require reports on certain matters relating to Iraq. That's very different, which is why so many people took Reid's statement on Sunday exactly as it was spoken.
When speaking about the Iraq war in the middle of Bush's mismanaged disaster it's important, even critical, to say exactly what you mean the first time. When people are dying at alarming rates that continue to escalate it's not too much to ask that everyone mean what they say and say what they mean. Of course, that doesn't always happen, but when you get it wrong a correction or clarification is warranted.
Senator Hillary Clinton recently made
a very bold change in her rhetoric on the war.
Majority leader Reid says he now believes we should redeploy in 4-6 months. That's entirely different from
the Levin-Reed plan he supported, which called for 2006 to be a time of
“significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with Iraqi security forces taking the lead for the security of a free and sovereign Iraq, thereby creating the conditions for the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq.” The shifts we're hearing in Democratic leaders are real and noteworthy, especially since they are now noting timelines, along with their rejection of prior "yea" votes on authorization.
more…This leaves no doubt where the clarity has been all along: Kerry-Feingold.
Democrats are moving in the right direction and others, including
Bill Richardson and
Joe Sestak, have now come out strongly for definite timetable.
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