A vote which won't matter

"The president's veto means he can continue to ignore votes like that."

So said Dan Damon just now, referring to the House vote yesterday to end the Iraq war by April 2008.

It's the third time the House has voted for this. Once before the Senate failed to vote a companion bill, and once W vetoed it. It wasn't exactly on party lines: that would have been 231-201 and it was 223-201 (4 Republicans voted for, 6 didn't vote; 10 Democrats voted against and 2 didn't vote). That's not a veto-proof majority: they need 57 more votes. Figure the odds of 57 Republicans defecting (if those dozen Democrats vote for it; 69 if the Dems vote as they did).

And moreover, in the Senate if all Democrats vote for it and so do both Independents (not likely given that one of them's Lieberman), it will still need 11 Republicans to override the certain veto. And figure the odds of that happening...

So all that will happen - again - is that W will posture and preach and keep on doing what he does.

If you have a Republican congressman - lean on him. Hard.