This Is Civility?

The big news in the House yesterday, of course, was the GOP-orchestrated vote to reject the GOP's own proposal to withdraw immediately from Iraq.

Never mind that there is little support on either side of the aisle for immediate withdrawal, the Republicans were going to propose it and reject it anyway. Their purpose was purely political -- to blunt the force of a completely different proposal by Democratic Representative John Murtha, a pro-military, 37-year Marine veteran, that we withdraw "at the earliest practicable date". The resulting late-night debate was acrimonious in the extreme. Notoriously, Republican Jean Schmidt (who has no military experience) caused the House to erupt when she essentially called Murtha a coward.

The entire thing was an exercise in dishonor and incivility, as Republicans sought to derail serious consideration of how best to advance the Nation's interests and protect our troops in Iraq, and instead to force a meaningless, symbolic vote on something no one wanted in the first place in order to score cheap political points.

One might hope that Tim Johnson, who founded the so-called Center Aisle Caucus for the express purpose of fostering civility in the House, would have stood against such tawdry grandstanding. He could have voted against bringing the bill to the floor. When the bill came to a vote, he could have expressed his disapproval by voting "present". He could have done what Ray LaHood did, and simply not voted. (LaHood was present and voted on other House business yesterday).

Tim Johnson did none of the above. He voted "aye" in both the procedural and final votes, and so was complicit in the partisan hijacking of the House.