printOr else why would they have voted against Jim Webb’s “proposed amendment forcing the Pentagon to give troops more time off between deployments”? Webb comes from a military family; he’s a Vietnam veteran, a father to a son fighting in Iraq and son to a World War II warrior.
Chief among the objectors was “Sen. John McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, who has made winning in Iraq the focus of his bid for the presidency.”
Not that he’s any less hypocritical than the Republicans, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is quite right to say that “most of my Republican colleagues are much more concerned about protecting their president than protecting our troops.”
Update: As I understand it, the idea is a simple one: to allow soldiers worn-out by lengthy deployments sufficient time to recover—allow them at least to rest up. That’s why I say Republican puling about loving the troops is nothing but posturing. They won’t even allow the poor sods to get a break from the Iraqi inferno.