Well, it wouldn’t be the first time, but it’s a weird one. Here’s what happened on December 16 in an interchange between Senators Santorum (R-PA) and Wyden (D-OR) when Santorum was making a proposal on Iran to the Senate:
Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I am going to propound what I hope will be two unanimous consent requests about one particular issue. The issue is on the anti-Semitic statements made by the President of Iran, Mr. Ahmadinejad, who said, among other things, that the state of Israel should be wiped off the face of the Earth. We have been working cooperatively to try to get this resolution cleared, condemning those statements. We had some concerns raised with the resolution which I will discuss in more detail. We finally have a version cleared, and I will discuss in detail how we had to work through that. Suffice it to say that it is good to see that we are going to finally get strong bipartisan support to condemn this conduct and call for Iran to be a constructive partner in the peace process in the Middle East.
I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 336, a resolution to condemn the recent destructive and anti-Semitic statements of the President of Iran which I submitted earlier today. I ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, while I personally am vehemently opposed to the statements that have been made by the President of Iran, I have been asked by the Members on this side of the aisle to object, and I do so object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
So what was Wyden (who happens to be Jewish) objecting to on behalf of those Democratic Members? Well, look at the lines that were struck from the proposed legislation in order for the Iran Freedom and Support Act to pass:
1. The Senate supports efforts by the people of Iran to exercise self-determination over the form of government of their country.
2. The Senate supports a national referendum in Iran, with oversight by international observers and monitors, to certify the integrity and fairness of the referendum.
Should I have titled this “Which Side Are You On” yet again?
UPDATE: More here.
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23 Comments
1. scribe10:God save us from this “well meaning” ‘Democrats.’
Dec 19, 2005 - 9:02 am 2. markus:Roger — though you see fit for some odd reason to note that Sen. Wyden is Jewish, you don’t see fit to quote what Sen. Santorum said about him in his very next sentence:
“Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oregon. I know he personally believes in the original resolution…”
I’m not sure what the objections were to those two provisions in the original resolution, since Sen. Santorum nor any other Senator never explained whatever reservations existed, and since even the Santorum press release on the passage of the revised bill also doesn’t see fit to turn a unanimous condemmnation of antisemitism into another “which side are you on” moment.
http://santorum.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressOffice.View&ContentRecord_id=1577&Region_id=0&Issue_id=0
But isn’t calling for self-determination and free elections in Iran a little bit BESIDE THE MAIN POINT of the resolution, which I thought was to condemm an outrageous comment and demand an apology and retraction?
Somehow, if a Palestinian leader elected by 61% of the electorate in his country made a similar outrageous comment, I doubt that the Congressional resolution would include a similar calls for Palestinian self-determination.
Dec 19, 2005 - 9:04 am 3. Robert Crawford:It wasn’t that long ago, during a “mock impeachment”, that the Democrats were passing anti-Semitic literature out at their headquarters. Why should anything surprise us?
Dec 19, 2005 - 9:20 am 4. monkyboy:The Democrats probably thought Bush would claim those two lines gave him the power to invade Iran without the permission of Congress..
Dec 19, 2005 - 9:20 am 5. TheRealSwede:Despite the display of Monkyboy’s razor-like wit, he once again proves he has nothing of substance to say on this or any other issue of importance.
Dec 19, 2005 - 10:35 am 6. flenser:And via Powerline, there is this complaint from Harry Reid.
We’ve become like the House of Commons. Whoever has the most votes wins. It hasn’t worked that way in 216 years.
Can the “Democratic” party be sued for violating truth in labeling laws?
Dec 19, 2005 - 10:39 am 7. flenser:Given the intellectual abilities of Reid and Pelosi, the Democrats probably did think as mobyboy suggests.
Dec 19, 2005 - 10:44 am 8. byrd:While Markus’ reaction seems to me to be much stronger then warranted, I too would like to hear more about the objections before passing judgment on their merit.
Particularly the second sentence about the ‘referendum’–that word is asked to do far too much work. What sort of referendum? It is beyond the scope of the resolution and working out the details would likely delay and detract from the message of condemnation.
Dec 19, 2005 - 10:49 am 9. flenser:byrd
Are you opposed to the idea of referenda, of whatever sort, in Iran? If so, why?
Condemming the words of the Iranian leaders is simply a cheap feel-good gesture. It’s a little more useful to suggest a corrective for the underlying problem.
Dec 19, 2005 - 11:12 am 10. Ed Poinsett:One thing you can say about monkeyboy is that he certainly is a dreary troll. I bet he’d have fun with a molotov cocktail at a wedding.
Dec 19, 2005 - 1:07 pm 11. Jim Rockford:Dems are simply insane. The objection is from the Code Pink / Moveon folks who view the Iranians, Holocaust denials, threatening to nuke Israeal etc are their “allies” to defeat GWB.
THAT wing has total control, the anti-semitic flyers passed out at DNC (for which Dean-o only apologized after being raked over the coals by the WaPo) were part of the atmosphere.
Israel has just ZERO support for it’s basic existence in the Dem Party outside a few “moderates” like Lieberman etc. Simply because Bush supports the existence of Israel.
Dec 19, 2005 - 2:05 pm 12. Buddy Larsen:Hi, Caryl–found those Bolton cites yet?
Dec 19, 2005 - 3:15 pm 13. monkyboy:Do you equate not wanting to invade Iran with anti-semitism, Jim?
Dec 19, 2005 - 3:40 pm 14. Buddy Larsen:You mean, like you do, Caryl?
Dec 19, 2005 - 4:14 pm 15. ex-democrat:personally, i see the dems admission they don’t support “efforts by the people of Iran to exercise self-determination over the form of government of their country” as progress of sorts.
kind of like an alcoholic admitting they have a problem. a big one.
Dec 19, 2005 - 4:46 pm 16. ex-democrat:.. or like dim-witted PETA-supporting ‘peace activist’ trolls that one day wake up to realize they are spending their golden-years contriving ways to support the world’s greatest mysogynist psycho-killers.
Dec 19, 2005 - 4:54 pm 17. Buddy Larsen:I think people ought to be thinking Biblically. A big white flash in the skies over Tel Aviv will set this world’s two halves against each other in something akin to what we ain’t quite prepared fer. Then, the left side of the aisle will want to have been a bit more assertive back when it would have made a difference.
Dec 19, 2005 - 4:59 pm 18. Buddy Larsen:ex, tell it to the taliban women.
Dec 19, 2005 - 5:02 pm 19. Fausta:Slightly off-topic,
Iraq vote leaves Dems looking like the losers, says Mark Steyn, who’s on a roll,
Heigh-ho. The Iraq election’s over, the media did their best to ignore it, and, judging from the rippling torsos I saw every time I switched on the TV, the press seem to reckon that that gay cowboy movie was the big geopolitical event of the last week, if not of all time. Yes, yes, I know: They’re not, technically, cowboys, they’re gay shepherds, but even Hollywood isn’t crazy enough to think it can sell gay shepherds to the world. And the point is, even if I was in the mood for a story about two rugged insecure men who find themselves strangely attracted to each other in a dark transgressive relationship that breaks all the rules, who needs Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger when you’ve got Howard Dean and Abu Musad al-Zarqawi? Yee-haw! And, if that sounds unfair, pick almost any recent statement by a big-time Dem cowboy and tell me how exactly it would differ from the pep talks Zarqawi gives his dwindling band of head-hackers — Dean arguing that America can’t win in Iraq, Barbara Boxer demanding the troops begin withdrawing on Dec. 15, John Kerry accusing American soldiers of terrorizing Iraqi women and children, Jack Murtha declaring that the U.S. Army is utterly broken. Pepper ‘em with a handful of “Praise be to Allahs” and any one of those statements could have been uttered by Zarqawi.
And he goes on to say,
Bush lied, people dyed.
On the subject of Iran, DW News had a report titled, Irani reaction to Ahmadinejad’s comments (available at http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,1595,266,00.html, see right sidebar) that went to some great lengths to assure everybody that Ahmadinejad’s just talking tough, and is not serious, and that “few Iranians believe a real crisis is going to develop over this”.
I wonder what the Iranians would do if they had a chance at a free referendum — not that Wyden would be agreeable to that, for the looks of it.
Dec 19, 2005 - 5:22 pm 20. Fausta:(make that from the looks . . .)
Dec 19, 2005 - 5:23 pm 21. Buddy Larsen:actually, “for” is truer, Fausta.
Dec 19, 2005 - 5:28 pm 22. ex-democrat:more light and joy coming to ex-Persia: http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/19/D8EJG5V80.html
won’t our caryl be pleased!
Dec 19, 2005 - 6:07 pm 23. Buddy Larsen:Somehow, ex, that reminds me of “Mars Attacks”, where Slim Whitman’s ‘western music’ caused the alien’s heads to explode–which is all that saved the world in the end. \;-D
Dec 19, 2005 - 6:45 pm