How cool was that, firedoggies? Wednesday afternoon, Connecticut Senator and presidential candidate Christopher Dodd vlogged at FireDogLake about his Amendment to this summer's Defense Authorization Bill. We had a great dialogue, thanks to your terrific questions, Dodd Squad blogger Matt Browner-Hamlin's excellent reading of our questions, and Senator Dodd's thoughtful and considered responses. For me, the video and audio worked great — for those of you with challenges, try watching the vlog again, or check out egregious's excellent transcriptions, starting about comment number 202.
Senator Dodd took a brave stance during the frustrating vote on the Supplemental Warbill, one I think got Senators Clinton and Obama to vote against the bill. Early on, he made clear he'd vote against the bill and challenged other Senators to join him. Teefs-n-Tufts Biden voted for more war, more death, more occupation. But Barack — and finally, Hillary — voted with Dodd to oppose the President. Dodd proved that you don't have to be an ex-Senator to show leadership to end BushCo's disastrous Iraq occupation.
Senator Dodd made clear during his dip in the Lake that he's not done fighting to end America's misadventure in Iraq. He'll introduce an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill, coming to the Senate floor in June. The Dodd Amendment will:
Immediately begin redeployment of U.S. combat troops.
Set a firm deadline for completing redeployment by March 31, 2008.
Provide no additional funding for combat operations after March 31, 2008.
Hold the Bush Administration accountable during the redeployment period by requiring the Secretary of Defense to regularly report to Congress on the drawdown of forces.
Institute measures that would make funding within the redeployment period contingent on the progress of phased redeployment.
Restore the readiness of the military, Reserves and National Guard by transferring portions of monies that would have been available for combat activities.
Sounds good to me. Let's help Chris Dodd end the Iraq occupation. Most of all, he needs co-sponsors and he needs them now. Let's make sure our Senators arrive back from their Memorial Day work period with lots of emails and phone calls from their constituents with this subject line: PLEASE CO-SPONSOR SENATOR DODD'S AMENDMENT.
You may well know that I've made another choice for President in 2008, but I think this kind of Senate leadership needs our support and our help. We're past presidential politics on this. We need to turn the ship of state, and Senator Dodd's on the right path to do that. Please ask your Senator to join him.
Update: Matt Browner-Hamlin talks about his vlog session on Colin McEnroe's show here.
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