Hepkitty's Litter Box

okay-more on the voice vote held in the senate to pass bush's $87billion iraq reconstruction funding. it was a chickenshit move on all fronts. let me elaborate, for those who don't realize what a voice vote is all about, it's basically a way to vote anonymously, ie-there is no record of which senators voted which way. the official reason given for this course of action is that those who voted yes on the $$ don't want it held against them politically if the war should remain unpopular, and those who voted no don't want to look unpatriotic. chickenshit. plain and simple. the votes i'm concerned about are of those senators who are running for president. if you voted yes and believe in your vote why not stand up and say so? and if you voted no, stand for that too. what probably happened is that most if not all of the contenders voted yes, and didn't want it to bite them in the ass in the debates, and in polls. the biggest reason that sucks is that these were the same guys calling for serious questions about what the money was specifically earmarked for before they would vote for it, and at last check they didn't get those answers. there was also pushing for some portion of the money to come in the form of loans, and that didn't happen either. what the frick!! i mean, let's look at the president for a second here-they voted for the loan thing and bush said he'd veto it. he'd veto his own funding request!!! and he was the one who assured us that iraq's oil meant the war would pay for itself in the first place!!!! why didn't anyone take that opportunity to ask some questions? i for one really want to know what the administration has against loans for a country that sits atop such an enormous oil reserve. and also, how come after the president's threatened veto did they just pass it. if he can hold out to get what he wants why didn't the opposing senators hold out until they got some answers. i understand that that money is badly needed to resupply the existing troops in country, but alot of the stuff that money was specifically needed for was really dodgy and way overpriced-where's the demand for accounting? don't the taxpayers deserve a receipt? i just think this issue was too contetious and important to let go unchallenged. it's doubtful that the president would have held up funding for troop supplies if the senate insisted on their initial request to break up the bill into troop cost and rebuilding cost. that would've made bush look like an a-hole during an election year. but instead of taking the white house to task they just let it slide. it's like if you were say 13 years old and went to your parents and asked them for $1000.oo, and when they asked what you needed it for you refused to say so they said ,"ok-here ya' go!" that scenario is completely unthinkable-yet it just happened on a much larger scale, and it's our wallets that were being opened to foot the bill.