By DAVID ESPO
The Senate gridlocked on the Iraq war in a sharply worded showdown on Saturday as Republicans foiled a Democratic attempt to rebuke President Bush over his deployment of 21,500 additional combat troops.
The vote was 56-34. That was four short of the 60 needed to advance the measure, which is identical to a nonbinding resolution that Democrats pushed through the House on Friday.
By ROB KEZELIS
If asked, an experienced world traveler will eagerly describe the most famous and beautiful tourist destinations. The ancient parts of Europe, the incredible ruins of Ur (Iraq), China, the walled cities of Bangkok, the ruins of the Maya and Aztec, just to name a few. At each site, what we really see are monuments to man’s inhumanity to man.
By ANNE FLAHERTY
Determined to check President Bush, Democratic critics of the Iraq war hope a strong House vote critical of the administration’s troop buildup will pay dividends in the Senate. But Republicans are insisting on an alternative that rejects any reduction in troop funding, making it unlikely Democrats will prevail in a test vote Saturday.
By THOMAS P. M. BARNETT
A 1970s TV commercial featured a harried housewife who, when confronted with a sink full of dishes, cried out, “Calgon, take me away!” And in ancient Greece playwrights tied off convoluted scripts with a similarly satisfying plot twist known as the Deus ex machina, or literally, “god from a machine.” Want a tidy ending? The “god” lowered from the rafters announced one.
By JAMES PATON
Pepsi Center owner Stan Kroenke will hand over the arena keys to the Democrats in the summer of 2008 and let the political party do some serious redecorating.
In preparation for the Democratic National Convention, they will likely yank out lower-level seats, knock down luxury suite walls, haul in massive amounts of steel to reinforce the ceiling, erect a huge building in a parking lot to accommodate the media, and bring in new technology and miles of wire and cable.
By LISA HOFFMAN
Some veterans are up in arms over plans by anti-Iraq-war demonstrators to assemble next month at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Billed as a protest marking the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war’s start and the 40th anniversary of a pivotal march on the Pentagon against the Vietnam War, the March 17 event will commence near the haunting memorial and end at the Pentagon. Organizers expect an enormous turnout.
By PHIL HOSKINS
For a variety of reasons, we in the U. S. have developed some very strange rituals for the selection and election of our political representatives. We have pretty much guaranteed that we will get at best mediocre candidates and will elect those who lie to us the most effectively.
I always am torn between crediting the media for its slavish emphasis on the human foibles of candidates (and others) or tagging we the citizens with our short attention spans and penchant for the sensational rather than the substantive.