This was a significant week in Bill Richardson’s campaign for President, with a major address on climate change and how to end the bloodshed in Iraq. 

It was also a significant week for peace and stability in Korea and Asia – which highlights Richardson’s expertise in foreign affairs and his diplomatic skills. With Richardson as President we get two for the price of one – a can-do leader on domestic issues and an experienced diplomat that knows how to bring people and nations together.

First, Richardson spoke in D.C. at the Take Back America Conference and set forth an unambiguous approach to Iraq – total withdrawal of U.S. forces combined with a diplomatic offensive:

But there is a fundamental difference in this campaign — and that’s how many troops each of us would leave behind. Other than the customary marine contingent at the embassy, I would leave zero troops. Not a single one. And if the embassy and our embassy personnel aren’t safe, then they’re all coming home too.

No airbases. No troops in the Green Zone. No embedded soldiers training Iraqi forces, because we all know what that means. It means our troops would still be out on patrol with targets on their backs.

A regional crisis is worthy of military intervention. A true threat to our country’s security is worthy of war. But a struggle between a country’s warring factions, where both sides hate the United States, is not worthy of one more lost American life.

Richardson also discussed his plan to addressing climate change:

I’m proud to have the most aggressive plan of anyone running for president. Within twelve years, my plan would reduce global warming pollution by 20 percent, lower demand for oil by fifty percent, and push fuel economy standards to 50 miles per gallon.

By the year 2040, my plan would require that 50 percent of our electricity be generated from renewable sources and would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent.

You can read the plan for yourself at my campaign website or you can listen to the League of Conservation Voters. They rated it the most aggressive plan with the highest goals of any other candidate. These aren’t pie in the sky proposals, but they are ambitious.

If we can spend billions waging war in a country that never had weapons of mass destruction … then we can certainly find the will to stop the mass destruction of our planet.

It’s time that we as a nation chose the collective good over the desire to collect goods. And frankly, buying carbon offsets isn’t enough. Just like paying somebody else to go to church doesn’t make you religious … paying somebody else to conserve doesn’t make you a conservationist.

Earlier this year, Richardson visited North Korea and helped revive U.S.-North Korean negotiations on nuclear weapons issues.  During his April visit, North Korean leaders promised Richardson that they would meet with U.S. officials and representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor the shutdown of North Korea’s nuclear reactor, in exchange for the U.S. unfreezing funds owned by North Korea and held outside the country. 

In statement issued by the campaign, Richardson noted:

North Korean leaders made a promise to me to invite Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill to meet in North Korea. This high-level meeting comes on the heels of progress made toward shutting down the Yongbyon nuclear facility. Both of these actions are important steps in the process toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

In an Op Ed published in The Hill, Richardson called on Congress to pass and fully fund the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007 in order to move America to a reliable and verifiable paper-ballot system now, and discussed efforts in New Mexico to adopt paper ballots:

In 2005 a grassroots coalition of concerned New Mexicans demanded action — and we acted. Working together with these citizens and the state legislature, I fought for legislation to increase voter confidence in our democracy through specific and concrete measures. We improved and standardized training for poll workers. We established statewide standards for provisional ballots to ensure that voters in low-income areas will not be disenfranchised. We made absentee voting fair, simple and uniform. And we established a random, statewide 2 percent audit of voting machines.

One year later, I signed a bill to move New Mexico to an all-paper-ballot system using optical scanners to count votes. We ended the hodgepodge of systems that confused voters and raised questions about reliability.

New Mexico’s conversion to a paper-ballot system made sense. Paper ballots are the least expensive, most secure form of voting available. . . .Using optical scanners meant quick and accurate results, while at the same time paper ballots became the permanent, verifiable, durable record of the vote.

Campaigning in Iowa, Richardson was asked to respond to John Edwards’ claim that he is more electable than Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama. Richardson noted that the Rocky Mountain and Southwest states were becoming increasing Democratic:

We in the Democratic Party seem to be nominating candidates that maybe are very strong in the East Coast and the far West Coast.  The only dispute I have with the senator’s perception is that I can deliver the Rocky Mountain states that other candidates can’t.

When questioned on his position on abortion rights, Richardson made clear his support:

Democrat Bill Richardson says that if he’s elected president, he would reject any Supreme Court nominees who believe Roe versus Wade should be overturned. . .  Richardson made the comment today in Des Moines, acknowledging that his stance probably upsets some people. Presidents typically say they don’t ask potential justices about their views on specific cases, but Richardson says he would make an exception for Roe versus Wade.

Another article on the question of abortion rights observed:

Richardson said he’d treat abortion rights differently than other issues because it’s so crucial to so many Americans. ‘‘I say this because we always dance around this issue,’’ said Richardson. ‘‘I’m also going to ask them, you do support civil rights, right? You do support a right of privacy, right?’’

By not directly discussing standards for picking nominees, Richardson said presidential candidates hide vital information from voters. ‘‘I would put men and women on the court who would shape policy for a generation,’’ said Richardson. ‘‘That’s the biggest legacy of a president. We’re already paying for the Bush legacy with these last few decisions on privacy and choice.’’

Questioned on his position on illegal immigration, Richardson stated:

I have to deal with this issue every day as the governor of New Mexico. There are four border states, and we are one of them. Am I for this wall? No. It’s a 10-foot wall. First of all, Congress didn’t fund the whole thing. And do you know what’s going to be built? Eleven-foot ladders.

Richardson criticized the new Senate energy bill passed by the Democrats as a Band-Aid approach that did not go far enough to curb our dependency on imported oil or spur serious technological innovation and promote renewable energy:

A haunting question hangs over the new energy bill passed by the Democratic-controlled Senate just before midnight Thursday: Would it work if it became law?

The real answer lies far in the future, but skepticism was rampant Friday. One prominent presidential candidate, New Mexico’s Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, called it a “Band-Aid approach,” a sentiment expressed by other critics. Some called price-gouging provisions in the bill virtually meaningless, and President Bush has threatened to veto any bill containing such provisions.

Democratic leaders held out great promise for the legislation, saying it would reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign oil and help keep gasoline prices in check. “A giant leap forward,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) declared.

. . .In counterpoint to high Democratic praise in the Senate, Richardson, who served as energy secretary in the Clinton administration, said in a statement the bill did not go far enough and would not break U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

“It’s another Band-Aid approach, not the comprehensive medical treatment our nation’s energy policy needs,” he said. He called for a 50 m.p.g. fuel economy standard for cars instead of the 35 miles per gallon in the bill, which would have to be attained by 2020.

Richardson called for legislation that would incorporate the following elements as part of a comprehensive, integrated approach to climate and energy policy by 2020:

* Sharp incentives for making the plug-in car 50% of the auto market, giving consumers the option to fuel up at a fraction of the cost of gasoline;
*  A 50 mpg fuel economy standard for conventionally fueled vehicles, helping stimulate technologies that save fuel and save consumers gas money;
*  A 30% renewable energy requirement, which will help fuel our plug-in cars and will cause the retirement of dirty old coal plants;
*  A 20% improvement in energy efficiency across the board;
*  A climate change cap and trade program that auctions rights for industries and utilities to emit carbon at lower and lower levels — at least 20% less by 2020, and 80% less by 2040.

Finally, Richardson spoke on the importance of LGBT rights and Pride Month:

I am very pleased to join my friends in the GLBT community and Americans across the country in celebrating Pride Month. This month is a deserved commemoration of the contributions of GLBT Americans to the United States and a welcome symbol of how far we have come as a nation.

We must also acknowledge that we are in the midst of a difficult struggle for basic human rights and we have a long way to go. This month is a worthy symbol of our progress towards full civil rights for every American, but we cannot ignore the challenges we still must conquer before we can truly move forward and create a better society.

I saw an article in the Washington Post recently that really caught my attention. The author writes:

We used to have goals. Remember goals? Sending a man to the moon? Or how about ending poverty or balancing the budget?

Now we have “benchmarks.” Like “surge” or “insurgents,” it’s become part of our everyday language when we’re talking about Iraq.

Benchmarks are an important component of any plan – they help you measure progress, and they clue you into what is and is not working. But benchmarks absent any underlying plan or final goals are meaningless – nothing more than empty talking points meant to create the illusion of a plan that doesn’t really exist.

The Boston Globe also recognizes the empty rhetoric of Bush’s benchmarks:

The most obvious deficiency of the benchmarks is that Congress provided no penalties for failing to meet them. Bush opposed such penalties; the absence of any explains why he felt free to praise the bill as reflecting “a consensus that the Iraqi government needs to show real progress in return for American’s continued support and sacrifice.”

Even if Congress had persuaded Bush to agree to punishments for unmet benchmarks, however, the belief in benchmarks as instant therapy for Iraq would still be obtuse.

Real progress comes from bold leaders who have identified not just near-term benchmarks, but a robust plan for achieving visionary, progressive change. 21st Century Democrats has supported real leaders in the past – leaders like Ted Strickland, Keith Ellison, and Sherrod Brown. We’re proud of the men and women that we helped in 2006, and we’re looking forward to helping more progressive leaders in the 2008 elections.

At 21st Century Democrats, we believe that there are too many people in government who are more concerned with meaningless benchmarks than real progressive change. We’re looking for more visionary progressive leaders, so if you know a great progressive candidate that could use our help, tell them to fill out our candidate questionnaire. If you believe we need proposals instead of benchmarks, sign up for our email newsletter and stay in touch with us as we move forward towards real progressive change.

I wrote this for today’s Beyond Chron, San Francisco’s Alternative Online Daily.

Back in March, I reported that Michael Colbruno – State Senator Carole Migden’s former chief of staff – is now V.P. of Government Affairs for Clear Channel Outdoor, the massive billboard company.  Whenever Colbruno wants to help his old boss, he makes sure that San Francisco gets plastered with campaign billboards for election season.  Today, the local Municipal Transportation Authority (M.T.A.) will vote on whether to give Clear Channel an exclusive contract to advertise on all 1,100 Muni bus shelters throughout the City, just in time for Carole Migden’s tough re-election fight.

But Clear Channel isn’t waiting for the Muni contract to help her campaign.  Last week, the company set up huge billboards throughout the district, proclaiming that Migden is “leading California’s campaign against the War.”  Migden has always opposed the War in Iraq, but to say that she has led California’s campaign demeans members of Congress like Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters and Lynn Woolsey who represent California and have led the charge since Day One.  Carole Migden may have authored a resolution in the State Senate last January to oppose George Bush’s escalation.  But ironically, it was her opponent, Mark Leno, who sponsored the very first resolution in the nation against the Iraq War – in October 2002.

On October 10, 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Iraq War Resolution, giving George Bush carte blanche to invade the country based on “weapons of mass destruction.” But three days earlier, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution urging Congress to oppose such military action.  Sponsored by then-Supervisor Mark Leno, San Francisco became the very first City government to go on record opposing the War.  Tony Hall and Gavin Newsom were the lone dissenters.

At the time, Carole Migden was in the State Assembly – but there was no such action taken in the state legislature to oppose the War.  Now she claims to be “leading California’s campaign” against the War.  Her only evidence is that in January 2007, Moveon.org approached her to get the State Senate on record opposing George Bush’s proposed escalation of the conflict.  As a State Senator, Migden authored the Resolution, as did Mark Leno who sponsored a companion motion in the Assembly.

But if Migden has been leading the campaign against the War, what has she done in the past four years about it?  While Migden was on the state Board of Equalization from 2002 to 2004, she has been a State Senator for the past two-and-a-half years.  Two years ago, Assemblyman Jerome Horton sponsored a resolution urging that Congress withdraw from Iraq “no later than December 31, 2005.”  Migden was nowhere to be found.

By claiming to lead California’s campaign against the War, Migden has minimized the work that members of California’s Congressional delegation – including the two who ironically represent her State Senate District – have done to oppose this War.  In 2002, San Francisco’s Nancy Pelosi broke away from the party leadership and lobbied the Democratic Caucus to vote “no” on the Iraq War Resolution.  In January 2005, Lynn Woolsey of Marin County became the first member of Congress to support withdrawal.

In fact, most of the members of Congress who have led the charge to end the War in Iraq are from California.  In September 2006, Maxine Waters of Los Angeles sponsored a resolution to repeal authorization of the War.  In June 2005, eight members of Congress – including Woolsey, Waters and Barbara Lee of Oakland – founded the Out of Iraq Caucus.  Today, that Caucus has a healthy California membership, including Pete Stark, Xavier Beccera, Lois Capps, Sam Farr, Bob Filner, Mike Honda, George Miller, Grace Napolitano, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Linda Sanchez and Hilda Solis and Diane Watson.

The Clear Channel billboards are clearly identified as belonging to the company, but do not disclose if Migden’s re-election campaign paid for them.  But the billboards include the same photo, campaign logo and campaign slogan that Migden has used on her official campaign website — which at least raises issues about “co-ordination.”

With Migden’s relationship with Colbruno, it’s no surprise that Clear Channel will display her likeness throughout the district.  Not only does Clear Channel do this for Migden, but they also do it for other candidates who are protégés of the State Senator when she lets Colbruno know that it’s important.  Such examples are Harry Britt’s Assembly race in 2002, and Chris Daly’s re-election fight in 2006.  If Muni approves the Clear Channel contract today, expect to see these ads on bus shelters soon.

But what’s fundamentally dishonest is when the billboards claim that Carole Migden is “leading” the way for California against the War in Iraq.  Because this demeans the work that many other legislative leaders in the Golden State have taken to bring our troops home.  Migden may have been a good vote on this issue, but she’s not a “leader.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: As a private citizen, Paul Hogarth has endorsed Mark Leno for State Senate.  He does not play an advisory role in the campaign, and saw the billboards himself without a “tip” from the Leno campaign.  Send feedback to [email protected]

I hope you guys appreciate me, because I managed to get through the entire 90-minute debate for the June 26 primary in the 37th Congressional District to replace the late Juanita Millender-McDonald held on Thursday night.  11 Democrats were on stage, and because they were all given 2 minute opening statements, the debate really didn’t cover much ground.  But actually, the fact that the moderator was a clueless local news anchor from LA’s ABC7 who had virtually no connection to the district was a good thing, as the persistent issues of race played out in the media in the campaign were fairly nonexistent in the debate.

Detailed two-day-late debateblogging on the flip…

Let’s take a look at each candidate’s opening statement:

Ed Wilson: former mayor of Signal Hill, a small city in the district.  He immediately went after the whole ethnicity issue, saying “this is not a black seat or a white seat or a Hispanic seat, it’s your seat.”

Peter Matthews: He’s the PDA-endorsed candidate who has run for office many times, including challenging Millender-McDonald in a primary in 2006 (and getting 10,000 votes).  Matthews is running on the progressive issues on getting us out of Iraq, closing the inequality divide, providing single-payer universal health care, and restoring tax fairness.

Jenny Oropeza: The state Senator was strong on the war, saying “we need to get out of Iraq now.”  She talked about the environment, health care, revising NCLB, and needing to “turn around trade agreements” that sacrifice American job (that was cheering).  She closed with “You know my record,” playing off her experience serving the area.

Laura Richardson: Assemblywoman Richardson is also running on her record.  She kind of messed up her move from talking about Iraq to domestic issues, saying “I want to talk about the war in America” and then claiming that Al Qaeda is running rampant (I think she meant in Waziristan, not Long Beach).  Didn’t seem like much of a public speaker.

Valerie McDonald: The late Congresswoman’s daughter talked about her ties to the area, the need to keep families together in the black community, and the importance of education.

Bill Grisolia: He’s a longtime employee of Long Beach Memorial Health Center, so universal health care was one of his themes.  But he was at his most powerful discussing the war in Iraq, and his desire to cut funding except to bring our troops home.  He also tried to blunt the experience argument by saying “What have the electeds done for you?”

Mr. Evans: I forget his first name and it doesn’t matter.  He’s a far-right immigrant-hating loon who somehow was let into the Democratic primary.  He proudly namechecked Lou Dobbs in the first sentence of his statement and called himself a closed-borders candidate.  There is a sense in the black community that immigrants are in competition with them for low-paying jobs, but this was the most extreme out-and-out black bigot I’ve seen.

Alicia Ford: Spent her entire statement talking about something she did a decade ago that ABC7 didn’t cover, which made her bad.  Also actually said “In Compton, they are without… a lot of things.”  Stirring.

Lee Davis: Her whole statement decried the front-runner assumptions of the media, and said that “if the top three had any self-respect they’d leave this stage right now” to allow for equal access, and then actually WAITED for them to leave the stage.  They, er, didn’t.

George Parmer: a truck driver from Long Beach, the first to actually call for impeachment and call out the Democratic leadership for their sell-out on capitulation in Iraq.

Jeffrey Price: Talked mainly about lobbying and ethics reform.

Albert Robles: a write-in candidate in a 17-candidate field.  Best of luck to you.  I mean, if you can’t get the papers in on time…

The first question was on Iraq, and pretty much the entire field is committed to getting out now, so on that big issue, there’s not a lot of daylight and everyone is on the right side.  Peter Matthews went so far as to suggest that there ought to be impeachment investigations into lying us into war, and announced his support for HR 333, the impeachment of Dick Cheney.  The moderator actually did the “raise your hands” thing on the impeachment question, and I think 8 or 9 candidates raised their hands, including Jenny Oropeza (it was a wide shot on a postage stamp video window, so I could be wrong).  Mr. Evans, of course, kept calling the President the “commander-in-chief” and yelled at everybody for undermining him in a time of war.  I think there’s a place for him in the Connecticut for Lieberman Party.

On Iran, Jenny Oropeza has sadly bought into the bullshit rhetoric that they are a threat to our national security and that all options have to be on the table regarding their nuclear program.  She also said that she thinks diplomacy has failed because this President is incapable of it.  Only Alicia Ford understood that Iran is not an imminent threat, but then she went on about how China is a threat to this country and how in Compton they don’t have “things.”

Transportation and port security was a major topic, with the Port of Long Beach in the district.  Most candidates supported efforts to green the ports, including State Sen. Alan Loewenthal’s $30 container fee for clean air proposal.  Peter Matthews pressed the need for public transit to aid a cleaner environment.  Valerie McDonald was good on this issue as well.  George Parmer, the trucker, maintained that many truckers own their equipment and can’t afford to modernize their trucks, and so some of the funds from the container fee should trickle down to them.  I didn’t see much difference here.

A big topic was the events at MLK/Harbor Medical Center’s ER, which has been in the news lately, as a woman fell dead in the waiting room while the hospital staff did nothing.  Most of the candidates believed MLK/Harbor should remain open and would support the $200 million in federal funding that goes into it annually, though Ed Wilson and Valerie McDonald stressed accountability.  Laura Richardson said a platitude like “this situation must be dealt with” but didn’t explain how.  Peter Matthews mentioned that he organized a picket at MLK/Harbor 2 years ago and the only result was that they cut beds in half.  Bill Grisolia stressed the need for cooperation in the community, perhaps nurses college training partnerships to get more staff in there.  Many stressed the need for universal healthcare so that poor people aren’t relying on the ER as their last resort.

On a question about Wal-Mart, Oropeza proudly claimed that she fought against a Wal-Mart in Long Beach, and now there’s an Albertson’s there!  (Does she not read the news about the looming grocery strike and how Albertson’s in particular is trying to screw their workers again?)  The major candidates were in agreement on this, though only Valerie McDonald mentioned that workers ought to have the right to organize.  I take it she’d support the Employee Free Choice Act.

In final thoughts, Oropeza said she wouldn’t support the current immigration bill but didn’t say why, George Parmer advocated a national paper ballot because “votes are being stolen,” and Ed Wilson wanted to stop Congress from raiding Social Security and Medicare funds.  Laura Richardson took a cheap shot when she mentioned some local shooting and claimed she was the only candidate there (what, if you run for Congress, you have to know where the shootings are?).

My impression is that the candidates, by and large, are fairly similar and fairly progressive, as befits the district.  Oropeza and Richardson are politicians who are playing some political games.  Oropeza doesn’t seem all that informed on a couple crucial issues, and Richardson is clearly running a “vote for me, I’m one of you” race.  I was impressed with Valerie McDonald and Bill Grisolia.  Peter Matthews certainly has all of his progressive chops down, and it will be interesting to see if he can leverage the grassroots energy in Southern California from PDA and translate it into votes.

Bill Richardson was in Los Angeles yesterday talking mass transit.  He was touting the success of commuter light rail in New Mexico and said light rail would be equal to highways in a Richardson administration.

“I believe light rail is for the future,” he said. “The president can be a partner, working with state and city and local communities in joint funding.”

This obviously is a nice compliment to recent Calitics discussions about High Speed Rail in California and the broader concerns over responsible growth management and community development.  But what strikes me most is that Bill Richardson isn’t talking about Iraq.  He’s free to talk about things like light rail because for him, Iraq is no longer an issue.  Bill Richardson unequivocally wants all troops out of Iraq now.  He thinks that congress should de-authorize the war, and if he were to become president, all American personnel would leave Iraq.  That’s it, next question.  Say what you will about the rest of his platform and framing (I have), but by dispatching with Iraq and leaving no doubt about his plan and commitment to ending the war, Richardson is free to talk about everything else.  You know…the stuff that actually makes up a presidency.

I’ve bounced around the idea lately of a president maknig a major commitment to subsidizing commuter mass transit around the country, and it’s interesting to hear Richardson coming out as a proponent.  But this isn’t about supporting or not supporting a presidential candidate or about the merits of public transportation systems.  This is about framing the debate in Democratic terms.  This country has decided the war needs to end and the troops need to leave Iraq.  The debate is OVER.  We should be expecting our candidates to accept that and move onto the rest of the business of being President.

At the California Democratic Convention, most of the major candidates talked a lot about Iraq and about clawing out of the hole that George Bush has dug this country into.  All important, and all great ways to get the crowd excited.  But amid all the rhetoric about recovering from Bush, there’s very little discussion about what happens after.  Bill Richardson has, in many instances, simply taken it for granted that the first step is reversing every failed Bush policy, and the rest of us in the party should be taking that for granted as well to a certain degree.  We shouldn’t presume that our party leaders are actually going to do that, but we should not accept this as the parameters of the debate.  It’s just a given.  Talk to me about what comes next.

Bill Richardson is talking about what comes next.  Whether you agree with his ideas about what comes next or not, it is, in itself, something that we should be demanding of our other candidates.  We shouldn’t be stuck talking about how various candidates will restore us to 1996.  We should be talking about the things that nobody’s thought of yet.

Also Orange and Blue.

(I know y’all are probably tired of the Harman postings – but this really concerns Dems because it’s about changing the Iraq frame in the media so we can get hell out of there. Harman is one of those Dem’s reinforcing the current frame.)

As discussed previously at DailyKos as well as here at Calitics:

Jane Harman, unbeknownst to her constituents, was going to vote FOR the Iraq supplemental up until the last minute.  She’d voted Yes on a supplemental with timelines before.  This one was the blank-check version that Bush wanted.

She voted against it in the end and put out a press release that said the argument that this vote was about sending the troops the armor and equipment they need “rubbish”. 

But the truth is she was for it until practically the very last minute, and she herself equated not voting for the supplemental to not giving the troops the armor they need. 

And, to top it all off, even after having voted No, she said she hadn’t changed her thinking on that.
(more) 

Joe Klein’s subsequent post leaves no doubt that Harman said what he reported her to say, because he goes on the attack against bloggers by citing them for doubting him on that point.  Like his earlier posts, this post of his is disingenuous and deceitful in a lot of ways, but not on this point.  Harman did give Klein the quote he says she did.

Klein’s essentially saying: the fact that Jane Harman’s words sound so outrageous and untrue given the way she voted is not my fault, it’s hers. 

Remember, Jane Harman accuses people voting against the bill as so uncaring for troops that they would not give them the armor they need to protect themselves from frakking IED’s. And then she voted against the bill herself. 

But that’s not the worst of it.  The situation isn’t that she realized she was buying into pro-administration talking points and came to her senses at the last minute.  That would be bad enough to have to admit that what you believed a few minutes ago is wrong, because people would use it as ammunition to attack the position you now support.  That’s not what happened here – she didn’t “see the light” at the last minute.  Exactly the opposite, in fact.  She did what her anti-war constituents wanted; she didn’t change her mind. 

Even after her No vote and her press release that called such thinking “manipulation” and “rubbish”, she said she still stood behind what she said to Klein [that no vote = denying troops armor].  I surmise that she must reconcile herself to how her thinking clashes with her vote by looking to the fact that the bill was going to pass despite her voting no.  (There’s no way she thought that her vote would actually cause troops to go without armor – nobody could live with themselves if they held that belief and voted No.) 

Thus she has the luxury of having it both ways — letting her vote and press release say one thing, and having her statements to Klein assert the exact opposite.

But why does what she say matter, you may ask, when she voted the right way on the supplemental and even on the rules for debate that could have scuttled the bill.  The reason what she says matters is that it prolongs the war, despite her votes in this case 

The fact is that a supplemental putting real restrictions still would have been needed to be passed through the House and the Senate even if this blank-check was torpedoed by the rules of debate, and there simply weren’t the votes in the Senate to keep trying. 

To change that, the terms of the debate themselves needed (and still need) to change.  There never will be the votes to end this occupation so long as putting restrictions on funding = cutting funds for the troops. 

And Harman isn’t just not speaking out to counter that argument, she’s legitimizing these talking pointsto this very day to “concerned liberals” like Joe Klein who make the most of them to beat down Democrats.  The “facts” Klein makes up to support his view – like saying Obama and Clinton changed their vote on the supplemental for example – are not going to be damaging (other than to Klein’s reputation as a journalist) over the long run.  But when he’s got a real Democrat – especially a high profile Democrat on military matters – endorsing his “Dems are irresponsible” narrative with her actual (not made up) words, then Klein gets the “proof” that this narrative is truthful.  And that’s a lot harder to overcome. 

And because Harman can’t bring herself to renounce this thinking even after voting No on the supplemental, then she’s delaying the end of our occupation of Iraq instead of helping it to happen – no matter her No votes in this case.