Standing up for the troops when it counts

McBride's frothing over her coffee again, or maybe just foaming at the mouth:

Feingold voted NO for a resolution that read:

To express the sense of the Senate that General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq, deserves the full support of the Senate and strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all members of the United States Armed Forces.

Russ Feingold is a disgrace. Let it be known. He's on record. He doesn't support the troops.

Oh contrary, as McBride would say in French.

Feingold not only supports the troops but did something meaningful to demonstrate it in the last two days. First, he voted for a reasonable bill from Sen. James Webb, a former Navy secretary and Vietnam hero, to give our troops some respite between repeat tours of Iraq. Republicans, who say they're for the troops, killed the bill.

Feingold also introduced an amendment to start bring the troops home soon, but it got only 28 votes. Sen. Herb Kohl voted with him on both of those bills.

McBride's outrage that anyone would question a member of the military rings more than a little hollow. As I suggested in a comment on her blog, which may or may not see the light of day, Republicans should have passed an amendment to "condemn personal attacks on the military except for John Kerry and Max Cleland, two decorated Vietnam heroes, who may be slandered at will." They should be comfortable with that.

For much more on MoveOn and the events of the last few days in the Senate, I've written a longer post on Uppity Wisconsin.

UPDATE: The Senate deadlocked 47-47 Friday on another Democratic proposal, from Sens. Carl Levin and Jack Reed, to begin bringing troops home within 120 days, remove most troops within nine months, and shift those remaining from combat to support roles. Kohl and Feingold both voted yes. Because of the threat of a GOP filibuster, the amendment needed 60 votes.