Ellsworth

The liberal bloggers are aghast that someone would point out Senator Daschle's and Senator Johnson's role in the creation of the 2005 round of military base closures (Known as Base Realignment and Closure or BRAC).  All of their foul-mouthed vitriol is much sound and fury; signifying nothing.  The 2005 BRAC round did not just magically spring into existence.  It took an act of Congress.  That act of Congress occurred during the Daschle-led Senate's debate in September, 2001, over the fiscal year 2002 defense authorization bill.  The bill contained a provision authorizing another BRAC round in 2003 (in conference negotiations, the year was changed to 2005).  The House DID NOT HAVE a BRAC provision in their version of the authorization bill, and in fact was adamantly opposed to the idea.  When a group of senators tried to introduce an amendment to take the BRAC provision out of the defense authorization bill, Daschle marshalled the votes to defeat the amendment, and explicitly voted to defeat it, as did Senator Johnson.  At every point where the 2005 BRAC round could easily have been prevented, Senate MAJORITY Leader Daschle did all he could to push it forward.  He explicitly voted for a new BRAC round, and appointed Senate conferees who refused to back down from keeping the provision authorizing the 2005 BRAC round, despite heavy opposition to it from the House conferees.

The liberal bloggers have drawn our attention to the fact that Senator Daschle voted twice see here and here to repeal the 2005 BRAC round he had fought so hard to successfully implement in 2001.  In essence, the argument seems to be that Daschle voted for the 2005 BRAC round before he voted against it.  It was admirable of Senator Daschle, once he realized he was mistaken in working as Majority Leader to implement a 2005 BRAC round, to try to undo his mistake.  But this vote was akin to trying to close the door long after the horse had gotten out of the barn.