In the give-and-take, back-and-forth world of the blogosphere, sometimes you have real differences of opinion based on interpretation, context and so on. And then there are times when someone writes something so hopelessly, gloriously, spectacularly inane that all you can do is sit back with your mouth open and gaze in awe.
I give you one Bill Strong of Dunnville, Ontario, who writes the following about a recent dust-up in the U.S. House of Representatives:
403 to 3 vote affirms US commitment to Iraq
US troops won't be leaving Iraq "immediately".
Republicans in the US House of Representatives finally had enough of the Democrats' tactics of false claims that "Bush lied" and forced a vote on an issue raised by Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha calling for an immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq.
Obviously fed up with the lies, deception and hypocracy [sic] of the Democrats, Republicans described Murtha's proposal as as a "strategy of surrender" and forced the vote. The debate got pretty heated, but in the end the Dummocrats [sic?] really had no choice.
What I want to know is - who were the three that voted in favour of this insanity?
Update: In case I wasn't clear, the vote was defeated 403 to 3. Those voting for it were Democrats Cynthia A. McKinney of Georgia, Robert Wexler of Florida and Jose E. Serrano of New York.
Poor Bill -- apparently completely unaware that the House was not voting on the original Murtha resolution, but on a bastardized, ridiculous version presented by the GOP that they tried to use to embarrass the Democrats, only to have that resulting vote blow up in their face.
Yes, the 403-3 defeat of that resolution means that even the GOP were voting against their own resolution! Apparently, nuance like this is lost on Mr. Strong.
DETAILS, DETAILS: Just in case you're as dim-witted as Mr. Strong, let me emphasize for you the differences between the original Murtha resolution and the pathetic joke that the GOP replaced it with. First, here's just an excerpt of Murtha's original resolution, in which you can clearly read that he's pressing for a U.S. troop withdrawal "at the earliest practicable date":
Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of American in Congress assembled, That:
Section 1. The deployment of United States Forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date.
And what was the House actually voting on? Why, this unrealistic piece of nonsense, reproduced in its entirety:
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.
1 Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.
I suspect everyone but Mr. Strong can appreciate the difference, no? (Kos has the same story happening over here.)
AFTERSNARK: As a number of pundits have pointed out, this vote backfired spectacularly against the GOP. As you can see, almost every Democrat voted against the idiotic GOP resolution, simply because demanding that U.S. troops pull out immediately would have been an incredibly stupid thing to support.
The obvious backlash is that the GOP can no longer accuse the Dems of wanting to "cut and run" since the Dems can now point out that they voted against that very resolution of immediate withdrawal. Yes, the GOP, trying to be clever, well and truly screwed themselves here.
One gets the feeling that this GOP clusterfuck is due primarily to chaotic leadership in the House. Now that Tom DeLay isn't running things with his typical iron fist, there are others who have been pressed into leadership roles who just aren't up to the job. DeLay might have seen this fuck-up coming from a long way away, but no one else did. Poor babies.
OTHER VIEWPOINTS: stageleft gets it, too. So does Cathie.
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