by Jill Zuckman
Sen. Jim Webb, the junior Democratic senator from Virginia, is a former Secretary of the Navy. So is Sen. John Warner, the senior Republican senator from Virginia who is retiring next year.
Webb and Warner have worked closely together on military issues in the Senate, including Webb’s push to give the troops as much time at home (known as “dwell time”) as they spend in Iraq or Afghanistan.
In July, Warner voted for Webb’s amendment, a vote that constituted a significant break with the Bush administration. More recently, Warner, the former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, was considering serving as a co-sponsor to the amendment.
Under pressure from the White House, Warner decided recently not to help sponsor the amendment. But Webb still expected Warner to vote for it, just as he did this summer.
To Webb’s surprise, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a Naval Academy graduate and current chairman of the Armed Services panel, announced today on the Senate floor that Warner would offer a separate amendment known as a “sense of the Senate resolution.” Warner’s amendment would say the Senate would like to allow servicemen and women to have as much time at home as they serve overseas. But it would not require it.
Looking stunned, Webb said he was learning about Warner’s split for the first time from McCain.
“I would like to state emphatically at the outset, this is a situation that calls for the will of the Congress. It calls for the Congress to step in and act as an intermediary,’’ Webb said, arguing against Warner’s sense of the Senate approach.
In an email sent to reporters, Webb’s spokeswoman said: “This is an absolute shock to us all.”
Webb and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) have been trying to persuade other Republicans to vote for the new rotation schedule, and at least half a dozen said Tuesday that they were considering it. But Warner’s decision to offer a competing resolution without the teeth of the Webb language may dash their efforts to get 60 votes.
"I look forward to this debate and I know it will be both educational and I know enlightening and informative,” said a smiling McCain.
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Comments
So much for McCain and Warner supporting the troops.
Wow! I had really thought better of them.
Posted by: Catherine | September 19, 2007 12:14 PM
I can't believe that these so-called "support the troops" Republicans (John Warner, John McFinished) want to "support the troops" by not giving them adequate down time and repeatedly sending them back to fight in someone elses civil war.
Posted by: John E | September 19, 2007 1:07 PM
I was wrong when I thought McCain too old and senile to be POTUS. He is just as much a hack as the rest of them. Back in my (and Mccain's) time, you did ONE tour in the war zone, i.e. Vietnam. Granted, McCain's tour was, er, extended by circumstances beyond his control. But I would have thought he'd have remembered what was going on to our troops in those days. Come to think on it now, maybe he is too senile to remember.
Posted by: T.J. | September 19, 2007 1:15 PM
Just the GOP senators demonstrating their submission to the all-powerful unitary executive. I'm surprised McCain and the other GOP senators don't bow down in supplication in the presence of Georgie the Great.
Posted by: Tom O | September 19, 2007 1:24 PM
As a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer I find it difficult to understand how anyone who has served in the Navy (or any branch for that matter) cannot support our service men and women when it comes to rotating from overseas to CONUS. Traditionally the Navy has always had the highest divorce rate amongst the services and the reason for this has been due to the long and arduous sea duty sailors have endured. Separation from family cost me my first marriage shortly after I retired from the Navy and it will continue to cost sailors if our leaders in congrees don't understand that families count as part of the total Navy family.
Posted by: Bill Downs | September 19, 2007 1:56 PM
Typical Republic. Lots of lip service toward the troops, but no actual help.
Support the troops. Bring them home.
Posted by: weinerdog43 | September 19, 2007 3:24 PM
General Shinseki told a congressional committee that several hundred thousand troops would be necessary for the required complements to occupy Iraq. Paul Wolfowitz told Congress that “our soldiers would be greeted as liberators and flowers would be thrown to them and revenues from the sale of oil would pay for the rebuilding of Iraq.”
Senator Warner ignored General Shinseki who has thirty years of experience and embraced the neocons. Now the blood of 3,790 American soldiers who have died and 27,848 wounded and thousands of innocent Iraqis' deaths are on the hands of Senator Warner.
Senator Warner and the Republicans who voted against legislation to allow our soldiers equal time at home with their families have demonstrated such a virulent disrespect for those soldiers,
they can only be regarded as anti-America.
I am happy that Senator Warner is leaving the Senate before he can further harm America. He and Senator McCain have become neocon enablers and have disgraced our country and our brave soldiers.
Chagrined,
M. Delphia Block
Posted by: M. Delphia Block | September 19, 2007 8:01 PM
The glee with which Sen. Warner announced his suprise to Sen. Webb was enough to cause one to puke. Sen. Warner announced that the had (evidently while Sen. Webb was speaking)talked with a few 3 Star's (unnamed of course) who didn't think additional dwell time was required as the amendment provided. The gleee that Sen. Warner and Sen. McCain disclosed the "withdrawal" of support on information they knew could not be vetted was sick, partisan and displayed total submission to Lord of the Flies (Prs. Bush). The "word" of Sen. Warner and McCain is not worthy of their position and gives new meaning to the old addage that there is no honor amoung whores.
Signed,
Thomas E. Shafovaloff
Posted by: Thomas E. Shafovaloff | September 19, 2007 11:50 PM
The glee with which Sen. Warner announced his suprise to Sen. Webb was enough to cause one to puke. Sen. Warner announced that the had (evidently while Sen. Webb was speaking)talked with a few 3 Star's (unnamed of course) who didn't think additional dwell time was required as the amendment provided. The gleee that Sen. Warner and Sen. McCain disclosed the "withdrawal" of support on information they knew could not be vetted was sick, partisan and displayed total submission to Lord of the Flies (Prs. Bush). The "word" of Sen. Warner and McCain is not worthy of their position and gives new meaning to the old addage that there is no honor amoung whores.
Signed,
Thomas E. Shafovaloff
Posted by: Thomas E. Shafovaloff | September 19, 2007 11:51 PM
As a member of a Navy family with family members who have deployed overseas 8 of the last 10 years, I can support the sense that we ought to have as much time at home as deployed. We forget that it was those who want to bring the troops home now who gave us this reduced military that cannot support the rotations they desire. We are now reaping the 'peace dividend.' Let's support the troops and build an adequate military.
Posted by: John E | September 20, 2007 9:55 AM
I guess the republicans are a lot of hot air when they say they support the troops.
Sen. Warner has a well earned reputation for wimping out. What does he have to be afraid of, he is not running?
Posted by: Sarah, Kansas City, MO | September 20, 2007 11:01 AM
The fact that John McCain is involved does not surprise me, Nothing he has done or said since his literal and figurative disgusting embrace of bush at the 2004 convention, his figurative embrace of the imam falwell and the amerikan taliban at liberty university, etc., have been nothing more or less than calculating moves to gain the rebubbacan nomination, worthless though it will prove to be. geo. dubya shrub says jump and he removes his head from dubya's ass and says "how high" ! That said, I am amazed at Warner's move ... I just wonder what is being held over his head to warrant this. So sad, how the supposed righteous have fallen !
Posted by: USNA | September 21, 2007 2:18 AM