Covering the wrong story the wrong way

The vote to rebuke Bush’s escalation failed in the Senate; not really a big surprise given the Republican’s insistence on rules that required 60 votes. What I find maddening about this thing is the coverage. Here we have a Democratic majority holding a symbolic vote to express the majority position of the country on the war and the press is falling all over themselves to repeat the bullshit conservative pro-war talking points on the issue.

Seriously, has any elected Democrat said that they would cut off funding for troops in the field? Yet every time the war comes up, some Republican screeching weasel is in full throated roar declaring that the Dems are going to strand our troops in the desert without money, bullets or a way out. Case in point, this awful passage from the CNN:

Republican leaders insisted that members get a chance to vote on two GOP alternatives, and that the process be conducted under rules that called for 60 votes to pass.

Republican critics have claimed that passing the resolution could lead to a cutoff in funding for the troops.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said before the vote that Republicans would insist on "a measure of fairness," allowing them to offer alternative resolutions -- including one stating the Senate won't cut off money for troops in the field.

OMG – where to start? First, having Mitch McConnell complain about fairness after the way R’s ran the Senate marks the death of irony. It is like having Rupert Murdoch decry the coarseness of network television. Mitch should shut his hypocritical, Deputy Dog looking cryhole. Second, why would “Republican critics” have any credibility when it comes to what the Democrats are going to do, especially when none of same has even suggested taking that course of action? If the stenographers in the press pool are going to let this crap pass without question, then the R’s should go whole hog and declare that the Dem leadership wants to vote on funding the insurgency. Right now, both votes are equally plausible. Finally, how come no one in the press is talking about how we got to this point? If Congress had sacked up when this disaster got started and provided some measure of oversight, perhaps GWB could have fucked up a little less. But that didn’t happen and now we find ourselves in a fine mess; 3100 dead soldiers, a half trillion dollars in the hole, and an Iraqi government that couldn’t find its own ass with both hands and a team of doctors.

That is the damn story people. Everything else is meaningless by comparison.