Gravel hits a nerve
by WonkoKevin
Mike Gravel has always been entertaining at the Democratic debates, and usually after each debate or TV appearance Gravel has gotten a one-day bump in Wonkosphere buzz share. Something different happened yesterday, two days after the last debate–Gravel’s buzz share kept increasing, to 5% amongst liberal bloggers. Now, three days does not make a trend, but it’s possible that Gravel’s comments on both Iraq and Iran struck a nerve within the liberal blogosphere, coming at the tails of the Senate’s resolution denouncing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the lead runners’ refusals during the debate to commit to 100% troop removal by 2013.
While conservative bloggers continued to have fun with Gravel’s bizarre comments about his bankruptcy, liberal bloggers talked about Gravel’s “they should be ashamed” moment:
RUSSERT: You were in the Senate, and you take credit for stopping the draft. If you were a senator right now, what advice would you give your colleagues still in Congress about how they can stop the war, even though they don’t have enough votes to stop a debate or to override a veto? What should they do?
GRAVEL: Well, the first thing, you stop the debate by voting every single day on cloture. Every day. Twenty days, and you’ll overcome cloture. The president vetoes the law. It comes back to the Congress. And in the House at noon every single day you vote to override the president’s veto. And in 40 days, the American people will have weighed in, put the pressure on those.
You tell me that the votes aren’t there — you go get them by the scruff of the neck, that’s what you do. You make them vote.
RUSSERT: Senator, are you suggesting that these candidates suspend their campaigns, go back to Washington, and for 40 consecutive days vote on the war?
GRAVEL: If it stops the killing, my God, yes, do it. And, Tim, you’re really missing something. This is fantasy land. We are talking about ending the war. My God, we’re just starting a war right today. There was a vote in the Senate today. Joe Lieberman, who authored the Iraq resolution, has offered another resolution and it is essentially a fig leaf to let George Bush go to war with Iran.
I want to congratulate Biden for voting against it, Dodd for voting against it. And I am ashamed of you, Hillary, for voting for it. You’re not going to get another shot at this because what happens if this war ensues, we invade, and they’re looking for an excuse to do it. And Obama was not even there to vote.
My Left Wing wants a hybrid…
But imagine: what if there came along a man like John Edwards who spoke like Mike Gravel? A man who had the demeanour and gravitas of Barack Obama — but the plainspoken nature of Dennis Kucinich? A woman who had the canny working knowledge of the ways of Washington D.C. and the United Nations and a talent for getting things done like Hillary Clinton — and the passion of Mike Gravel; and honesty, principles, a deep and abiding drive to improve the lives of all human beings and a desire to actually change the world instead of just leading it?
The next few days will show whether Gravel’s positions have any real stickiness.
