(Bumped -- kos)

As noted below, passage of the Webb dwell time amendment hinges on a handful of key Republican votes. Senators Voinovich (R-OH), Mukowski (R-AK) and Dole (R-NC) all indicated yesterday that they are seriously considering voting for the measure that would servicemembers at least much time at home as they have spent deployed in Iraq. Senator Warner (R-VA), as KagroX explainedyesterday, is having a little trouble maintaining a moral course.

As Senator Webb points out, this is a "very simple, common sense amendment." But the GOP has never been about common sense, or decency, or rationality for that matter. And thus, we have the GOP pushing hard against passage of the Webb Amendment:

Senate Republican leaders are leaning hard on their conference to vote against the Webb amendment, and Republican Party General Chairman Mel Martinez of Florida predicted the measure could lose Republican support this time around. At a closed-door luncheon meeting Tuesday, Senate Republicans discussed drafting an alternative, non-binding "Sense of the Senate" resolution stating that the Senate recognizes that the burden is very heavy on troops but supporting the troop rotations set by the Pentagon, senators said. Republicans hope floating that proposal would prevent defections by allowing their conference to go on record recognizing the challenges facing troops in Iraq.

Oh, now the GOP is embracing "Sense of the Senate" resolutions on Iraq (after calling similar non-binding resolutions on Iraq "meaningless" and "political stunts")? Of course they are. Because this proposed non-binding Sense of the Senate is not meaningless to them. After all, it means all the world to the GOP to ignore the reality of a near-broken military and to cling instead to their failed Commander-in-Chief. Party over people. It's the GOP way.

And so, this proposal, this repulsive mix of apathy and political calculation, is being force-fed to the aforementioned wavering Republicans. The Senate GOP believes it is a tempting treat for them--a way to express their "concern" for the troops stranded in the quicksands of the President's Iraq policy without actually having to do anything to help those troops.

But for those wavering Senators, this faux sensitivity, this feigning of compassion should not be enough. Because with 175 dead from Senator Specter's Pennsylvania, with 106 dead from Senator Warner's Virginia, with 90 dead constituents in the Land of Liddy Dole, with 63 heroes buried in the soil of McConnell's Kentucky, with 15 perished patriots in Murkowski's Alaska, and with 159 caskets carried back home to Voinovich's Ohio, and with literally thousands more injured or dead in every state in this nation, it is clear that Webb's binding bill is the only way to truly support the troops.

Three thousand seven hundred and eighty nine dead are no "small price". Almost 30,000 wounded troops are worth more than a non-binding bill of meaningless sympathy. And the families of nearly 170,000 deserve more than cardboard "Flat Daddies" and they deserve more than the pitiful, inconsequential expressions of "support."

They deserve action, and respect.

They deserve the Webb amendment.

Push back against the GOP's efforts. Call these wavering Senators, and tell them to give more than lip service to supporting our troops. Contact info is below the fold.