Via Powerline:
The Senate has passed an amendment sponsored by Senator Cornyn that condemns the recent "General Betray-Us" ad by MoveOn.org. The vote was 72-25.
The amendment was to:
To express the sense of the Senate that General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq, deserves the full support of the Senate and strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all members of the United States Armed Forces.
The following Senators, all Democrats, voted against condemning such attacks on General Petraeus and our troops:
Akaka, Bingaman, Boxer, Brown, Byrd, Clinton, Dodd, Durbin, Feingold, Harkin, Inouye, Kennedy, Kerry, Lautenberg, Levin, Menendez, Murray, Reed, Reid, Rockefeller, Sanders, Schumer, Stabenow, Whitehouse, Wyden
Obama and Biden didn't vote. Of those Democrats who did, a majority voted against Cornyn's amendment.
Update: Badlands Blue, aka The Democrat Talking Points Site, asks why John Thune would vote against the Boxer Amendment. Clearly the Boxer Amendment was designed to take attention off of the despicable MoveOn.org ad calling Gen. Petraeus, in essence, a traitor. I would have voted for both Amendments, but I certainly don't fault a Senator for preferring the language with greater clarity. Further, it seems to me that both Badlands Blue and Powerline deserve condemnation for keeping knowledge of the existence of alternative amendments away from their readers.
Update II: Perhaps it'd be useful to post the language of the Boxer Amendment:
To reaffirm strong support for all the men and women of the United States Armed Forces and to strongly condemn attacks on the honor, integrity, and patriotism of any individual who is serving or has served honorably in the United States Armed Forces, by any person or organization.
The objection seems to be, as I get from the comments at Captain's Quarters, that the Boxer Amendment, by casting its view into the past ("or has served honorably"), was trying to fight the "Swift Boat" battle over again. This was directly referred to on the floor of the Senate by Democratic Whip Dick Durbin. Of course the import of the amendment is that once one has served honorably in the military one becomes immune from criticism. By the logic of the amendment, at the height of Watergate one could not have questioned Richard Nixon's integrity, as he had served honorably in the U.S. Navy.
Clearly this is a case of the parties playing politics with the troops. The Republicans want to specifically condemn the MoveOn.org ad and give explicit support to those currently serving in Iraq. Democrats (or some of them), equate the actions of the Swift Boat Vets to those of MoveOn and will not single out MoveOn for condemnation. I'll leave it to the reader to decide if the actions of the "Swifties" and MoveOn are actually equal.
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