If you have to grandstand about something, please pick something other than our nuclear weapon policy. At the moment, Sen. Lugar appears to be the only Republican Senator willing to move forward with the new START treaty.
Whether Sen. Lugar’s colleagues are willing to move ahead with this or not should go a long way toward showing whether they are political nihlists, willing to run any risk as long as it means an Obama defeat; or public servants, willing to occasionally put aside their political games for a moment if it will be helpful in not destroying the planet.
I sometimes have my differences with Sen. Lugar, but appreciate him taking a stand on this one.
This must be the kind of thing that local Republicans whine about when they say that Lugar is too liberal.
They will stick to their just say no to Obama even if it endangers America. It is their version of Patriotism. The election of a black man to their White House and having to seem to have to pay homage to a black man who stands for everything the republicant party opposes: social justice, empathy for fellow Americans who are not of their social class, access to health care for all, a strong, respected America and service to the country with honor and dignity. Sure, we have many dems who are the same way–bayh comes to mind and his self serving quest for office and money from lobbyists, but Lugar has been one of the real people in office. Was he involved with all of the police and political corruption in Indy back in the 60-70’s? Probably. But now he seems to have been fighting the good fight to bring safety to America. We could use more of his type. Lose the rest.
Doug its easy. Only one thing is on their minds:
2012.
Allow me to present another side of the debate. While foreign policy is not my expertise, my understanding is that Senate Republicans are mostly concerned that the new treaty has basically no verification provisions. That’s a problem. As Ronald Reagan once said, “Trust, but verify.” Well, we can’t do that with this treaty. Additionally, there are concerns regarding the amount of input Russia has into our missile defense system.
I saw a pretty good article on National Review about it, but there seems to be a less good one here: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/david-limbaugh/2010/11/20/just-say-no-start-treaty