The Democrats have tried on several occasions to pass measures intended to get us out of Iraq. Their highest hopes rested on Jim Webb's proposal to mandate all troops spend at least as much time at home, training with their units, as deployed overseas. However, this would have made it impossible to staff our current effort in Iraq, something the proposal fully intended. Today, Webb's bill failed to achieve cloture in the Senate on a 56-44 vote. The roll call is here. Joe Lieberman was the only Democrat to vote against the bill.
UPDATE: See this from the Washington Post:
Unable to garner enough Republican support, Senate Democratic leaders said yesterday that they are abandoning a bipartisan effort to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq by next spring.
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said that Democrats had been willing to make the troop withdrawal a "goal" in order to attract GOP support, but it never materialized. Instead, Reid will again push for a firm deadline, this time June 2008, along with a stronger effort at cutting off war funding.
Reid won't be getting any more votes than what he's getting today, and the closer we get to Election Day, the less likely it will be that Republicans will side with the Democrats for fear of looking like flip-floppers. Those Republicans who are holding firm on a pullout date have already declared so. So, Reid moves on, and the antiwar movement gets the back seat.
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