Historically this is very significant. Sadly, Congress does not assert its responsibilities nearly as often as it should in foreign policy, and particularly where war is concerned. So to have a significant majority of the House—almost all of one party and a sizeable chunk of the president’s own party—register strong disagreement with a major decision of this sort is really quite significant.

It doesn’t end here. We will, I hope, move on to further legislation, but this is a very significant vote. I know the Republicans tried to mock it by saying, “Oh, well, it’s not important because it’s non-binding�—actually, I was kind of pleased by that in a way because it admitted what Bush and Cheney have not previously admitted: namely, that some of what we do is binding. They’ve tended to treat everything as non-binding, including the law.

Secondly, the Republicans themselves have forced us to bring out these resolutions. We’re a democracy; expressions of public opinion by people elected to represent the country are important. As I said it’s not the end of the process, but it’s a very important beginning.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 17th, 2007 at 11:30 am and is filed under Politics, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, The Administration .