Well there you have

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Well, there you have it. The Senate GOP minority has blocked a vote on withdrawal from Iraq, with the threat of a filibuster. No big surprise. It was clear from the outset that not enough Republicans would defect to overcome their party’s filibuster threat.

GOP senators can whine and complain all they want about the President’s Iraq policy, but when push comes to shove, the vast majority of them are still lined up right behind the President and his disastrous policy.

Since the media hasn’t been able to bring itself to use the f-word (filibuster) in describing the GOP’s procedural maneuvering, I’m not optimistic that the coverage of the defeat of the Democrats’ proposal for a withdrawal timeline will be much better.

We’ve already picked up on some doozies. The vote to end debate and proceed to a vote on the Democrats’ withdrawal amendment was 52-47, with 60 votes needed for passage. So that’s 52 senators voting to end debate and proceed to a vote. How does FOX News report it? The Democrats proposal failed 52-47, as if only 47 votes could be mustered for the Democrats’ position.

Now you would expect that kind of thing out of FOX, but CSPAN? Take a look:

Thanks to TPM Reader AG for the catch.

We’ll be following the coverage closely. Let us know what you find.

[Note: Oops. In its original form, this post incorrectly transposed the vote total as 57-42, instead of 52-47.]

Update: From TPM Reader TH:

I think even the New York Times headline gives the wrong impression. It reads: “Democrats Fail to Force Vote on Iraq Pullout.” It’s technically accurate, of course, but even someone up on the debate is likely to think that the Democrats couldn’t get their act together, that they weren’t united on this. An equally accurate but essentially more truthful headline would be: “Republicans Stymie Vote on Iraq Pullout.”

Exactly right.

Late update: Lead headline on the website of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Filibuster Fails to Force Iraq Vote.” Huh?

Thanks to TPM Reader MK for the catch.

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