Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Democrats against democracy in Iraq

Captain's Quarters:

The New York Sun reports that Democrats blocked the adoption of a resolution denouncing Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his anti-Semitic remaeks and Holocaust denial until a demand for an Iranian plebescite and self-determination free of the Guardian Council had been removed. The objection officially came from Senator Wyden (D-OR), who then told the Senate that, uh, he didn't have a problem with the resolutuion, but that his colleagues did -- who displayed their intestinal fortitude by hiding behind Wyden's skirts:

When Mr. Santorum moved to introduce the resolution last Friday, Senator Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon, registered an unusual objection. According to the Congressional Record, Mr. Wyden told Mr. Santorum on the Senate floor that he was objecting to the resolution because his Democratic colleagues in the Senate had asked him too. Mr. Wyden did not say who asked him to issue the objection.

"While I personally am vehemently opposed to the statements that have been made by the president of Iran," Mr. Wyden said, "I have been asked by the members on this side of the aisle to object, and I do so object."

Mr. Wyden's office did not return repeated calls yesterday to explain who suggested that he object to the Iran resolution or why he was chosen to register the complaint. And a spokesman for Mr. Santorum, Robert Traynham, said he did not know who raised the objection either.

D. Zin of Regime Change Iran has detailed this more closely -- his latest post is here, and he got a mention in the Sun but not a hyperlink -- but no one has discovered who passed a note to Wyden asking him to object to the original resolution. However, another odd event occurred. After Rick Santorum removed the two sentences that called for Iranian freedom, the Democrats (in name only, apparently) removed their objection to the resolution and it passed on acclamation.

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My speculation is that they feared a call for democracy in Iran would be used as a rational for a regime change operation in Iran. They appear to be regretting their support for the Iraqi Liberation Act in 1998. They also have been spending a good deal of their efforts thwarting democracy in the Senate with filibusters lately, so maybe they thought they would be seen as hypocrits if they supported democracy in Iran.