Liberty Maven

Dennis Kucinich had his day on the House floor today. The debate on his doomed bill to demand that Obama remove our troops from Afghanistan was full of the usual suspects making their usual arguments. I can’t help but wonder, if George Bush were still president, would there have been more than 60 votes of support from Democrats?

Ron Paul took his five minutes to continue his lifelong demonstration called, “How to follow the Constitution”.

Alan Grayson, who’s really really good to listen to when you agree with him and horrid when you don’t, smacked a home run with his time.

But perhaps the cold hard truth of the entire debate came from departing Congressman Patrick Kennedy, who railed against the media for not properly covering the debate.

The bill failed by a vote of 356 to 65 with only 5 Republicans voting for it. Those five Republicans were:

• Ron Paul (Texas)
• Walter Jones (North Carolina)
• Timothy Johnson (Illinois)
• John Campbell (California)
• John Duncan (Tennessee)

I suppose a valid argument could be made that this bill is unconstitutional because it usurps the President’s Commander-in-Chief power. However, since war was never declared by Congress, should the President even be wielding such power?

The full roll call by state and party affiliation is available here.