Gordo Back to Enabling Bush

The Feingold/Reid amendment--a pretty tepid bill of withdrawal, all things considered--failed today by a vote of 29-67 on cloture. As we noted yesterday, Ron Wyden signed on as a cosponsor and of course voted Yea. But Gordon Smith--he of the "possibly criminal" speech after the 2006 elections, and a dogged attempt to position himself as a war opponent--joined the rest of the Republican Senators present (Dole and McCain were absent) and voted to keep the war going.

Make no mistake, I'm also disgusted with the 22 Democrats and pseudo-Democrats (guess who) that folded like a gossamer card table. I'll list them below, for your derision. But the pertinent issue to Oregonians is that all of Smith's talk over the last few months is just that. As before, when it comes to actually taking a position in defiance of the President and the GOP, you can fucking forget it when it comes to Smith. Remember that as we go forward, as we work to get Steve Novick into the job in Smith's place. (That link is actually the announcement that Blumenauer is not running; if you want to help us put Steve there, go to his site, here.)

By the way, I called Smith's office yesterday to see what his vote would be. Can you guess what I was told? "The Senator hasn't reached a decision yet." Now THERE'S a shock. Of course, requests for his foreign affairs aide to call me back were ignored. I stifled the urge to ask, "Do you know when the meeting is where he will be told how to vote, so I can call afterward and find out?" but now I'm mad I didn't.

Thanks for nothing, jackass.

Update, 5/17 11pm--
BlueO gave some play to this story, noting that The O mentioned how Smith voted, without further comment. They also printed the quick and sharp response from DPO--they are definitely on top of it:

Meredith Wood Smith, chair of the Democratic Party of Oregon, criticized Smith's vote.

"If Gordon Smith were an action figure, he would never sell," she said in a written statement. "When it comes to Oregon's interests, Gordon Smith is a man of talk, not action. He will talk to reporters night and day about his reversal on the Iraq War, and then go to the Senate chamber and vote to prolong the conflict."

And hey, Senate Guru readers!

Democratic Hall of Shame (No vote on Feingold/Reid):

Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Bingaman (D-NM) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Conrad (D-ND)

Dorgan (D-ND) Landrieu (D-LA) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (ID-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) McCaskill (D-MO)

Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Pryor (D-AR) Reed (D-RI) Rockefeller (D-WV) Salazar (D-CO) Tester (D-MT) Webb (D-VA)