FMA Defeat = Repudiation of Bush

[Granite]

We all need to remember that when the FMA crashes and burns, that its not only a Senate Republican defeat - this is a direct repudiation of the President. Afterall, Bush has thrown himself and his office squarely behind this Amendment. The question is, in the face of defeat, will we start to see him backpeddle away from the issue, or will he be the kind of decisive leader on it that he claims to be?

When the politics got too hot, Bush dumped his good friend "Kenny-Boy" Lay, stopped talking about Osama Bin Laden, scrapped his ideas for settling Mars (or whatever that was), embraced the idea of the Department of Homeland Security after he initially opposed it, and supported the 9/11 Commission's formation after calling indepedent investigation unnecessary. Given his track-record of flip-flopping, is there any doubt that he'll try to get as far away from Constitutional amendments on Gay marriage as possible?

Remember - he couldn't even rally his own Party to vote for this.

If only there was a possibility to allow for a "no confidence" vote....

[SoFlaJet]

1. and history shows

that when an incumbent can't even solidify his own party -he loses his re(ahem)election bid

[Wapsie B]

2. He can't

backpeddle away from this. FMA is red meat for his konservative fundies. With all the mainstream repugs he's lost already he can't afford to let the freaks sit home in November.

[yolatengo]

3. won't he just say...

It's those pesky moderate Republicans and damned libbbrul Democrats
thwarting the Will Of The People. If ONLY you'd elect MORE Republicans,
especially more CONSERVATIVE Republicans, we'd "save marriage".

Oh, won't SOMEBODY think of the children!

The argument since time immemorial:

"give me MORE POWER so I can get your (MY) stuff done!"

Bigby

[Granite]

4. Maybe

But I'm not sure who would be listening. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/7/13/221610/468">Kos does a good job of repudiating the line that people are strongly against Gay marriage. So this approach by Bush might work with his fundie base, but I'm not sure that it plays at all with the moderates that he and the GOP are trying so desperately to reach (i.e. the principal speakers at the Pub Convention).

I just think that Bush made a big miscalculation on this one. I can't see why a President would throw himself and his office behind such a high-profile issue, knowing that it has no chance of getting passed, and knowing that significant numbers of your OWN PARTY are at best ambivalent and at worst openly against your stance. Its one thing if you had your own party behind you, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I mean, Bush can't even get his VP's own wife to agree with him on this.

[LoZoccolo]

5. He scrapped the Mars thing?

Oh no!

You've gotta understand, that was seriously the one thing he pushed that I thought was way cool!

I am not kidding! I thought it was cool that Bush* wanted to land an astronaut on Mars!

[Granite]

6. Not sure if its scrapped

He's just not going around talking about it much. His "vision" didn't play quite as well as he probably thought it would.

FWIW, I support the space program and NASA too, but the whole Mars thing, coming from Bush, seemed like a crass attempt a political maneuvering, nothing more.

[GiovanniC]

8. The Mars Thing Became a Joke

He was spending billions of dollars on his idiotic war, draining billions of dollars out of the treasury through his tax cut for the rich, underfunding programs like "No Child Left Behind" by huge amounts, and racking up massive deficits.

When a family makes $3000 a month and then one of the breadwinners quits their job, losing $1200 a month, and the mortgage is $800 a month, the car payments are $600 a month, the insurance is $200 a month, the groceries and utilities are $500 a month and the credit cards are $900 a month... that's not exactly the time to talk about taking a cruise.

But that's what the Bushies were doing.

The cruise is a nice idea, but we need to get the family budget under control first, in my opinion.

[THUNDER HANDS]

7. he'll forget he ever talked about it

It'll go down the memory hole in less than 48 hours. I GUARANTEE it.

[steviek]

9. On Gay Marriage

...and I quote:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Dammit! What don't these nincompoops understand about the nature of our society?

---Stevie

[Selwynn]

10. I'm sorry but you're wrong.

I'm thrilled that the FMA got crushed.

However, the purpose of this FIRST of MANY attempts to introduce the FMA was not designed to win. It was designed to get senators on the record, so that extremist neo-conservative groups in these senator's local districts can undermind their attempts for relection and stack congress with the people they want.

As far as Bush is concerned, Bush never expected it to pass -- this time -- either but he did need a diversion because last week SHOULD HAVE HAD EVERY HEADLING READ : INTELLIGENCE FRAUD LEADS TO ILLEGAL WAR IN IRAQ but instead it was all about whether or not gay people should legally marry. It gave him his diversion.

And if you don't think the FMA will be back again and again, you are sadly mistaken. As long as Bush is in office, and the Republicans controll congress, this will keep coming back. And they'll tweak it until they have majority support unless we do something this election.

[LoverOfLiberty]

11. Sorry to disagree

on a couple of points.

First, what went down was a procedural vote, not a vote on the ammendment itself. Therefore, no one is on record. As it stands, Republicans will likely scrap it for now. As CNN said

"But in the last two days, a number of Republicans have indicated they will not vote for the measure, leaving GOP leaders red-faced over their failure to muster support."

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/14/samesex.marriage/index.html

Secondly, majority support is not going to cut it, they need 67 Senators. If they have that number, this is going to be only one of many, many problems we face.

[Selwynn]

12. Everyone is on the record.

I know how every senator voted. that's all that was desired.

First: "the FMA will be back again and again, count on it."

Understand, I'm not saying the FMA will pass, I'm saying that this isn't some huge black eye for the President - it went about like everyone thought it would and was mainly a distraction to defelct attention away from the real issues.

[Granite]

13. But it should give him a black eye

Bush has thrown both himself and his office behind an issue that he couldn't even get his own party to have the discipline to support. I agree that he wanted Senators on record - but they were mostly interested in getting Democratic Senators on record. I know that no one thought that it would actually pass, but I'm fairly certain they thought that they would be able to get strong party discipline on an up/down vote, and when it was obvious that it wouldn't happen, they tried to change the actual amendment to soften the language.

The reality is, Bush called on Congress to pass this, and members of his own party abandoned him on it. If that isn't a clear defeat, I'm not sure what is.