Republican Richard Luger, a foreign policy expert and one of the few rational Republicans left in the Senate, is urging his Republican colleagues to ratify the New START treaty. “Please do your duty to your country” he implores. Apparently, his colleagues led by Senator Kyl are not listening.
Brent Scowcroft, another solid Republican, says he can’t figure out what goal Kyl & Co. might be pursuing by their opposition to the treaty other than the goal of denying the President a foreign policy victory. (A secondary goal might be squeezing Obama for even more wasteful government spending on warheads we’ll never actually use.)
If the START treaty is not ratified the U.S. will have no means of verifying the nature of weapon systems in Russia and the Russians will have no incentive to work with us on our policy with Iran or Afghanistan. There is no U.S. interest served by holding up this treaty.
Kleiman continues:
If patriotism means the willingness to put, in John McCain’s words, “country first,” then the party that just won the midterm elections may be the least patriotic party since … well, since the Republican isolationists almost let Hitler win World War II.
I perfectly understand why the few remaining moderate Republican politicians don’t switch parties. They’ve made their choice. What I don’t understand is the persistence of moderate Republican voters. Your party is irrevocably in the grip of a group of reckless, cynical, and largely ignorant extremists. Time to go. Noisily
His “affair”is a pain in your heart foreverAffair eventsAlthough the pieces of your heart,Although you love him, he does not value you,Although you pay so much, but did not return,