John Ensign, voted against the $360 million for the armored vehicles

Written by: Anthony Ronci on May 10, 2006 5:52 AM EDT

Here something that Jack Carter can hammer Ensign on.He voted against armor on military vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan and to increase Health care funding for medical care to Vets.Lets see Mr.Rap the flag around himself and say Republicans own the patent to all patriotism get out of this.This something I would love to see Ensign try to explain.

Tony

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Ensign votes against troops, vets
The Senate, or at least nine-tenths of it, was pretty pleased with itself after passing the whole torture-is-bad amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill Wednesday night. Some senators even got their handsome mugs reproduced in newspapers.

Lost in the shuffle were votes on a couple other amendments to the appropriation measure, including one to increase funding for armored vehicles protecting troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Of course, Republicans support the troops more than the rest of us. Just ask a Republican.

And yet, 42 GOP senators, including Nevada's John Ensign, voted against the $360 million for the armored vehicles.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, in a rare nanosecond devoted to something other than shaking down campaign contributors, helpfully cobbled together evidence of GOP senatorial hypocrisy: Kyl, Frist and Dole have all made public statements about the need for more armored vehicles, and yet all voted against the amendment.

Fortunately, enough Republicans voted with the Democrats to put the armored vehicle amendment over the top.

Unfortunately, an amendment to increase funding for veterans health care failed. Even more Republicans - 50, actually - voted against that, again, including Ensign. The DSCC notes that this is at least the fourth time this year that Republicans have blocked increased funding for veterans medical care, citing a vote in March and two votes in April. And yes, on each of those occasions, Ensign voted, no, no and no.

Of course, the Senate process can be Byzantine and convoluted - for example, a senator might vote against one amendment because he or she prefers another that achieves effectively the same purpose in a different way. That's just one of scores of reasons that it's not always fair to take a vote here or a vote there and use it to distort a senator's position.

So it's probably not right to point at these several votes highlighted by the DSCC and level the blanket charge that John Ensign is against protecting the troops on the ground and doesn't care what happens to them when they come home. After all, if senators' votes were presented to the public in distorted, twisted fashions during a campaign, why, a senator running for president might be accused of voting for, oh, gasoline tax increases eleventy-jillion times, or, say, voting for an $87 billion supplemental defense spending bill before he voted against it, or...hmm.

On second thought, John Ensign and most of his Senate Republican colleagues are against protecting the troops on the ground and don't care what happens to them when they come home.

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Location: Las Vegas, NV 89103