Sen. Voinovich (R) Refuses to Walk the Walk on Iraq

Sen. George Voinovich has repeatedly talked the talk on changing the Bush administration's stay the course/endless war handling of Iraq, but once again he rejected an opportunity to vote where his mouth is. Last night he joined all but six Republican members of the U.S. Senate in obstructing a proposed amendment by Sen. James Webb (D-VA) that would have required troops spend as much time at home training with their units as they spend deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Voinovich has outlined his own tepid, toothless plan for encouraging the Bush administration to change the U.S. mission from combat to the training Iraqis, and eventually withdrawing some troops, but when it has come time to actually vote on any measure intended to rein in the White House's handling of Iraq he has consistently sided with Bush. It is enough to raise the question - does this supposed "moderate Republican" have any spine at all?

It is also important to stress that last night's vote was not a straight-up vote on the amendment but yet another GOP obstruction based on the threat of a filibuster. A majority of Senators supported the amendment, but a GOP minority of 44 was able to block it. Back when the Democratic party used filibusters to block Bush's nomination of extremist ideologues to the federal bench, all we heard about was how the filibuster is anti-democratic and the Democrats were obstructionists. As detailed in a study prepared by Americans United for Change and ProgressOhio in August, this Republican minority is on a pace to triple the record for most filibusters (or obstructions based on the threat of a filibusters) in a single year. So last night's vote simply continues a pattern of GOP Senators thwarting the will of the majority on critical issues facing the nation.