Yes, your Ohio constituents are watching YOU, George. The time has come to put up or shut up -- we're tired of being teased by publicly stated doubts over Pres. Bush's leadership of the Iraq war, only to see you wimp out when time comes to take concrete action.

Unfortunately, your role model in recent months has been Arlen Specter, who tends to talk the talk when criticizing Bush over terrorism detainess, civil liberties and other legal/constitutional issues, yet lacks the guts to DO anything to rein him or his administration in.

Just do it, George -- at long last just DO it. You took no oath of allegiance to any President when being sworn into office -- your oath was, and is, to this country and its Constitution. Bush supporters disparage non-binding resolutions as useless and counter-productive. That's certainly debatable, although I disagree. One thing is true for sure -- there is nothing more useless than a "leader" who refuses to act in any way, even symbolically, when he KNOWS something is right.

Do your job, George, or Ohio voters will retire YOU, just as they rejected Mike DeWine last November.

This comes from a document on cloture posted on the U.S. Senate's own website, written by Christopher M. Davis (Analyst in American National Government, Government and Finance Division):

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"The majority required to invoke cloture is three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn, or 60 votes if there are no vacancies in the Senate’s membership. However, invoking cloture on a measure or motion to amend the Senate’s rules requires the votes of two-thirds of the Senators present and voting, or 67 votes if all 100 Senators vote."

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This indicates 60 votes are needed to invoke cloture on the upcoming Iraq resolution, based on a full slate of 100 Senators sworn into office, regardless of the number actually in attendance. Too bad, actually!

...I *have* contacted Sen. Voinovich's office while the earlier anti-surge resolutions were being considered, but have yet to receive a reply of ANY sort. Haven't called or written about tomorrow's looming vote -- you've given me the necessary push to try again!

I'll write the good senator immediately. All Ohio voters who care about this issue should do likewise, as well as Americans for any state who want George to do what's right.

Here's how that Pew poll question and its associated instructions for poll-takers were worded:

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"Please tell me what one word best describes your impression of George W. Bush. Tell me just the ONE best word that describes him. (OPEN-END. PROBE ONCE IF RESPONDENT ANSWERS "DON'T KNOW". ACCEPT UP TO TWO RESPONSES, BUT DO NOT PROBE FOR SECOND RESPONSE)."

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I didn't add the emphases -- that's exactly the way the text was presented on the Pew website. I interpret that to mean that responders could give no answer, or one answer, or even TWO answers. It's therefore pretty risky to add up the positive, negative and neutral responses to get any specific percentages representing the public's overall impression of Bush.

No matter, though, as denfield pointed out, what has happened to all those who mistook Bush for an actual Christian? That seems to have dropped to ZERO as a public impression of Dubya, and it's truly stunning!

I can't wait to see and hear what FauxNews, Rush Limbaugh and all the other assorted loonies have to say about THIS! Why, Ann Coulter is likely to have a stroke, and Dick Cheney a massive coronary -- assuming Ann really has a brain, and Cheney a heart. Both are debatable...

Friday, Feb. 16 needs to be noted in all the history books as the second major step towards getting this country back on track again, the first being Election Day 2006 (Tuesday, Nov. 7).

Next up is step three -- Sat., Feb. 17 and a Senate vote to approve this House resolution. I've called Sen. Voinovich to urge his support -- burn up those phone lines to other wavering Senators, people -- let's get this DONE!

My hopes for Sen. Voinovich were dashed, once again. The only surprise should be that I'm surprised in any way.

He's continued to emulate that other ineffectual politician, Arlen Specter, who frequently criticizes Bush policies on terror detainees, habeas corpus, etc., but has actually DONE little or nothing when the rubber meets the road.

Yesterday, I sent an e-mail and then phoned his office, urging his vote today in favor of invoking cloture. (However, no response to any message to date.)

All I could do was sigh, and send yet another message to his office, after learning he couldn't bring himself to join the other Republicans who crossed the aisle to vote for cloture today. (Sadly, I expect no response, based on previous experience.)

How gutless. How useless. How utterly disgusting. Sadly, Voinovich doesn't run for re-election until 2010, and the Iraq debacle continues unabated. On the bright side, though, he'll be reduced to greater irrelevance after 2008, when Republicans wither to an even smaller minority in Congress.

Dick Polman of the Philadelphia Inquirer is covering the story of Sen. McCain's frantic and pathetic flip-flopping VERY well -- go to these items for more, folks!

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/16736792.htm

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/columnists/dick_polman/16722837.htm

It doesn't get ANY more transparent than this. How anyone can believe a word uttered by McCain after his recent behavior is totally beyond me. (And Mitt Romney isn't far behind McCain in the arena of gold-plated political pandering!)