WTF? A time frame for Bosnia? A withdrawal date for Kosovo? by VirginiaDem [Subscribe] Wed Apr 25, 2007 at 01:14:07 PM PDT I can't believe this isn't being screamed from every single rooftop in the progressive blogosphere. The Republicans demanded timetables from Bill Clinton's military operations! TP's got the goods, focusing on votes by an intellectually dishonest Senator Kyl:
– In June 1998, Kyl voted in favor of amending the National Defense Authorization Act for FY1999 to "require the President to submit Congress a plan for withdrawing United States forces from Bosnia and Herzegovina if the Congress does not so act by March 31, 1999."
– In May 2000, Kyl voted against removing a provision from Military Construction Appropriations Act of 2001 that struck provisions requiring that President Bill Clinton withdraw all U.S. ground forces from Kosovo by July 1, 2001. VirginiaDem's diary :: :: So, ThinkProgress appears to be wrong that Kyl's first vote supported the amendment. He voted to table the amendment, and which the "equivalent to [voting] to defeat[] the question tabled." [link] However, that amendment was introduced by GOP Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire and a large number of current Republicans like Hatch, Sessions, Brownback - a real who's who of "support the surge" numbskulls - voted "No" in support of the Bosnia withdrawal language (i.e., against tabling the amendment).
And, of course, in 1998, Kyl did vote for the Kosovo withdrawal language with a number of fellow party-mates, including a number of current Senators who are in on this nonsense about setting a "date certain" for our enemy - Bond, Crapo, Sessions, Allard, Stevens, Brownback, McConnell, etc. ("No" vote is a vote against stripping out the deadline language.)
So, the current GOP is clearly guilty of supporting that same thing they are now decrying - setting timeframes and withdrawal dates in previous military operations.
So, left-wing truth machine: let 'em hear it. As Bush gets ready to veto Congress's funding bill and cut off funding to our troops with this sort of nonsense as his reason, let the world hear it. The GOP has repeatedly supported withdrawal dates for a President's military operations. The only difference is that the President was a Democrat and his operations weren't an absolute and abject failure.
(A previous version of this diary accused John McCain of the same hypocrisy based on his Bosina amendment, but further research has shown that McCain voted to table and thus opposed the Bosnia amendment).