Carte Blanche, Baby

Well, they passed it. The power to go to war with Iraq is now solely in the hands of our appointed president and his merry band of coldwar jingoists. I am genuinely shocked by the number of Democrats in the Senate who voted for this thing. Yeah, I heard Daschle’s little apologia when he flipped, his claims that this is a “different” bill than the one that arrived from the Whitehouse. I think it’s great that Bush needs to report on the state of Iraq every 60 days. And it’s really neat that we’re urging him to pursue other diplomatic options first. No, honestly. That’s a real coup, guys.

What really raises my gorge, though, is the number of senators who stood up and spewed long and detailed criticisms of the resolution, then returned to their seats and voted for it. Witness some of Hillary Clinton’s pre-yes-vote diatribe:

Once the battle is joined, however, with the outcome certain, [Hussein] will have maximum incentive to use weapons of mass destruction and give what he can’t use to terrorists who can torment us long after he is gone.

This echoes the claims of a CIA letter, recently sent to Congress, asserting that Hussein won’t do anything aggressive unless we attack him first. The president didn’t comment on this in his little speech the other night. One thing he did say, though, was that he wasn’t “willing to stake one American life on trusting Saddam Hussein.” He is apparently, however, willing to stake the lives of thousands of US servicemen and women on not trusting him.

On a happier note, I’m pleased to report that Connie Morella, the representative for my district — and a Republican — voted against the resolution, as did both of Maryland’s senators, Mikulski and Sarbanes. Morella is trying to cling to her improbable 15-year incumbency in a district that is suddenly a lot more liberal than it used to be (thanks to some nasty redistricting shenanigans, recently pepretrated by the largely Democratic state legistlature), and, with their leftist constituencies, Mikulski and Sarbanes don’t have much to worry about in opposing Bush. Still, it’s something to cling to, I suppose.

But the conduct of two other Senators briefly made me wish I lived in their state, instead. Here’s Robert Byrd of West Virginia:

Thirty eight years ago, I, Robert C. Byrd, voted on the Tonkin Gulf resolution! For all those spouting jingoes about the need to go to war with Iraq now, go down on the capital mall and look at the Vietnam memorial.

A week ago, he also quoted from a letter written by Abraham Lincoln on the subject of Congress’ authority to declare war:

The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.

Well said, tall dead guy. I’m also impressed with Senator Paul Wellstone’s No vote, which was risky, given the fact that he’s facing a tough reelection battle in a state that strongly supports Bush’s designs on Iraq.

After the vote, Byrd sounded dispirited. “I have fought the good fight,” he said. “I might as well talk to the ocean.” Which is an apt analogy, really, because this strange rush to war is just like everything else that’s happened since the Cataclysm of 2000; a series of bad policies that have crashed down upon an unsuspecting populace with all the force of a tidal wave.

Whatever. We’re now officially an aggressor nation. Good luck, Rest of the World. You’ll need it.