The Iraq Vote…
The U.S. Senate sent the war spending bill to President Bush. It passed the Senate by a 51-46 vote. Montana’s two democratic U.S. Senators (Max Baucus and Jon Tester) voted for the bill.
The House voted for it 218-208 Wednesday. Montana’s At-Large Congressman, Denny Rehberg voted no.
The President will veto it. Now, we’ll have a showdown to see what they can work out.
One of our allies, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, said this about the vote, “I think it is wrong, and I don’t think it is doing anything other than giving great comfort and encouragement to Al-Qaeda and the insurgency in Iraq,” He went on to say, “They [Al-Qaeda] are looking at all this, they read newspapers, they see it on television and they say, ‘The American domestic resolve is weakening, therefore we should maintain our resolve.’”
His comments pretty much sum up The Western Word’s (TWW) feelings on this vote.

The Big Debate…
TWW watched some of the debate between the democratic presidential hopefuls last night. I thought MSNBC did a pretty good job with it.
Hillary Clinton seemed to be the clear winner in my mind. She knows what to do and is more polished than the rest of the field. Barack Obama seemed kind of out of his league, but he has time to get better. John Edwards did not say anything that sticks out to TWW. Joe Biden did well and has some great ideas. TWW likes Biden. Bill Richardson did not do as well as I had hoped. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio always makes it interesting. He said you cannot be against the war and still fund it. Good point. Mike Gravel gave those in Congress a blueprint on how the democrats can stop the war. He was in the senate and led the effort to defund the war in Vietnam.
There’s a long time to go before the election of 2008 and this was a good first look at the candidates from the Democratic Party.

The Montana Legislature…
Some days this session has looked more like a professional wrestling match. We’re in day 90 today. Supposedly this is the last day of the 60th Montana Legislature. I don’t think they will get done today, but stranger things have happened.
One thing for sure is that the Republicans will come out of this session looking like the bad guys. It will probably cost them in the 2008 elections. The Democrats have come across as more professional and statesmanlike this session.
The Governor’s favorable rating would probably be at an all time high if a poll was taken today. Governor Schweitzer played off of State Rep. Lange’s remarks and Lange’s subsequent apology perfectly. Schweitzer was the bigger man. He knows politics.
I like the Governor’s idea of not paying the legislators if they go to a Special Session. It supposedly costs around $38,000 a day if they have one. Maybe someone should introduce this bill first if the go into the Special Session and see who votes against it?