and in my opinion, it s the heart of the issue. the heart of the issue? yeah, it is. look. it s the u.s. military. it s nato. if you put enough american soldiers somewhere, they re going to win at least for a while. they re going to kill everyone who s fighting them. that s kind of a given. but the problem is that s not a long-term solution. we can t stay there for ever. the afghans don t want us there for ever. so to have a long-term solution, you need the afghans themselves to buy into this fight. to make this fight their own. but why would you if you were an afghan civilian, why would you do that if the government you re fighting to protect, that you re risking your life for is corrupt? it s a contradictory message we re delivering. peter, you see the corruption. you see these mcmansions going up in kabul which are owned by people associated with the government who earn a small fraction of a salary that there s no way they could pay for this, then that wikileaks cable that t
we re not going to allow action on don t ask, don t tell. there are four moderate republicans like olympia snowe, susan collins, scott brown in massachusetts and lisa murkowski in alaska. will they break with their party if the rest of the party takes that approach, which i think they will. will those four or five, maybe dick lugar will join them, will they break with the party, say we ve made excuses once, we re going to make excuses now. we want this vote now, then we ll get to s.t.a.r.t. joe lieberman said the other day it s more important to get don t ask, don t tell done now and wait on the s.t.a.r.t. treaty. you ll need 66 under the constitution, two-thirds of the senate. you only need 60 to break the filibuster for don t ask, don t tell. politically for president obama if he s looking to, you know, gain some points with the liberal wing of the democratic party or the democratic party passing don t ask, don t tell would seem would do that more than the s.t.a.r.t. treaty.
castle in delaware. look at nevada. look at alaska. in primaries this year where establishment figures were beaten. do i want to be the next person to face that kind of a primary challenge because i voted for this bill, because i voted for earmarks? much easier to join the republican resistance. so you had this bizarre situation where you had people who had earmarks in this bill coming out and saying they were opposing their own earmarks. yeah, it really was a comedy of errors coming out of washington with this. the republicans had to know after voting for the earmark ban that their earmarks were going to come out in this legislation. god bless jim demint for pulling this stunt this afternoon, it worked. but, erick, this is probably a naive question, but when it comes down to it, what s wrong with letting a bill come up for a vote? regardless of which party poses it, isn t that the core principle of democracy, whether it s this or don t ask, don t tell or whatever? it takes 60
give you s.t.a.r.t. but we certainly don t want to give you don t ask, don t tell. so those things are currently in play right now. that s exactly what i m hearing, is that several of the republicans are basically offering the president a choice, take s.t.a.r.t. or take don t ask don t tell. you can t have both. he s going to want a vote. that s true, however we ve been through this before with the republican caucus essentially saying before last week that if you don t take action on the bush tax cuts we re not going to allow action on don t ask, don t tell. there are four moderate republicans like olympia snowe, susan collins, scott brown in massachusetts and lisa murkowski in alaska. will they break with their party if the rest of the party takes that approach, which i think they will. will those four or five, maybe dick lugar will join them, will they break with the party, say we ve made excuses once, we re going to make excuses now. we want this vote now, then we ll get to s.
and in my opinion, it s the heart of the issue. the heart of the issue? yeah, it is. look. it s the u.s. military. it s nato. if you put enough american soldiers somewhere, they re going to win at least for a while. they re going to kill everyone who s fighting them. that s kind of a given. but the problem is that s not a long-term solution. we can t stay there for ever. the afghans don t want us there for ever. so to have a long-term solution, you need the afghans themselves to buy into this fight. to make this fight their own. but why would you if you were an afghan civilian, why would you do that if the government you re fighting to protect, that you re risking your life for is corrupt? it s a contradictory message we re delivering. peter, you see the corruption. you see these mcmansions going up in kabul which are owned by people associated with the government who earn a small fraction of a salary that there s no way they could pay for this, then that wikileaks