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August 30, 2007

Merkley & Novick

I've written previously about the Oregon GOP's attempt to swiftboat Dem Jeff Merkley who just happens to be challenging for the right to unseat Republican Senator and longtime Bush lapdog Gordon Smith. Recently some supporters of fellow Dem candidate Steve Novick decided that running with the GOP spin would somehow help their candidate among Dems this year. (here, here, here, etc.)

Steve Novick for his part didn't initiate the issue. He was asked about it by a reporter and he stated that he wouldn't have voted for the resolution at all. But he hasn't exactly discouraged his supporters from continuing with the GOP meme.

Five Democratic legislators voted against the 2003 non-binding resolution. Those five have been held up by Novick supporters as sterling examples of how Merkley should have voted. They've irrationally argued both that Merkley voted in favor of a pro-war resolution AND aknowledged that Merkely clearly did not support the war and made that fact clear at the time. They insist that a vote in favor implies support for the entire thing while maintaining that a vote against doesn't imply opposition to the entire thing... Which is critical because, as Merkley made clear at the time, the major thrust of the non-binding resolution was an expression of support for the military men and women who were being sent into harms way without having any choice in the matter.

Novick & supporters clearly want Oregonians and Democrats in particular to wonder whether Merkley has a sufficiently stiff spine to properly represent the state in Congress... all based upon the distortion that Merkley's very clear and very public rejection of all but the troop support aspect of the 2003 non-binding resolution is essentially irrelevant and that only those five Dems who voted against the entire non-binding resolution did the right thing. Based on that single non-binding resolution vote Novick supporters are openly questioning whether Merkley can be trusted to do the right thing visa-vis Iraq if he's elected.

Surprise, surprise but some of those very same five Dems are backing Merkley rather than Novick! In fact one of them, Rosenbaum (along with Merkley), co-sponsored the Iraqi-pullout HJM 9 this past session. Of course if you are one of the die-hard Novick supporters trying to swiftboat Merkley then you have to find some way to ignore the fact that HJM 9 and Rosenbaum.Merkley's co-sponsorship of it demonsrates the folly of the GOP meme they've been trying to sink Merkley with.

Posted by Kevin at August 30, 2007 12:20 PM