Norm Coleman votes for Enragement – not Engagement – AGAIN !

On September 26, Senator Norm Coleman affirmative vote on Roll Call Vote 349 was a vote against diplomacy. The item was a Sense of the Senate Resolution offered by Senate radicals regarding Iran.

Was this resolution offered as a knee-jerk reaction to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visit to Columbia University (which Coleman criticized and the Rochester Post-Bulletin Editorial Department then criticized Coleman) ?
I would like to think that the delibrative body (that the Senate is supposed to be,) would have had this debated in the Foreign Relations Committee.
Coleman is a member of that Committee .
If so, that resolution may not even have made it out of committee.
When you see that 8 members voted against the resolution ( Biden, Boxer, Dodd, Feingold, Hagel, Kerry, Lugar and Webb ) including both the Ranking Democrat and Republican leaders, that tells me that people that know about diplomacy, question this action.

Coleman once again votes to enrage other countries and not use diplomacy to engage them.

This is sad.

Cooperation is possible.

As the Washington Post reported : Since al-Qaeda fighters began streaming into Iran from Afghanistan in the winter of 2001, Tehran had turned over hundreds of people to U.S. allies and provided U.S. intelligence with the names, photographs and fingerprints of those it held in custody, according to senior U.S. intelligence and administration officials.

But not if the Bush Administration is unwilling to respond when Iran has offered.
It has been reported that Iran in May 2003 sent word that it would consider far-reaching compromises on its nuclear program, relations with Hezbollah and Hamas and support for a Palestinian peace agreement with Israel, but Rove and Rice did not respond.

Bush’s Axis of Evil speech branded Iran -- but not bin Laden and al-Qaeda whom attacked America.

Iran may not be America’s ideal world partner, but Coleman’s own review of the Iraq Oil-for-Food program should prove that sanctions do not work. Iran’s President may be a “nut job”, but he is not the power … Iran is a theocracy which controls the military … and Ahmadinejad will be up for election in 2009 and the moderates may vote him out … unless America continues to make him a “rock star” in the Muslim world.

For Coleman who likes to project an image of someone who is committed “ to working across party lines to get things done", it’s time to put those words into action …. Heck, I just wish he would listen to Dick Lugar.

Lastly, a salute to Minnesota's junior Senator, Amy Klobuchar, who voted against this legislation.