Saturday, November 27, 2010

Ceding Authority

Remember during the 2008 campaign when Sen. Collins said she'd do the right thing as long as both former presidents with the last name "Bush" asked her to?

Me neither:

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who has reserved judgment on how she will vote until the resolution comes to the floor, said it could make a difference if Obama could get George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, both former presidents, to appear with him in support of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START...

"It would be wonderful if President [George H.W.] Bush would come out for the treaty. That would be so powerful and definitely help," Collins said in a telephone interview last week.
If the junior senator is looking for guidance from GOP foreign policy bigwigs, then she might take note of the fact that Henry Kissinger, James Baker, Colin Powell--each of them a former secretary of state--and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen--yes, that William Cohen--have all come out strongly in favor of the treaty.

Instead, she's looking for new hoops for the Obama administration to jump through. And resorting to almost comically vapid, substance-free statements in the process. (Though she does get points, here, for originality.)

It seems pretty clear that this is just another excuse for Collins to continue her GOP-friendly intransigence on a treaty that is, let's remember, about containing the threat of nuclear arms.

Shameful. And shocking. But not surprising.

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