Among those backing the Kucinich resolution were several prospective or announced candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, including Ron Paul of Texas and Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, as well as more than 40 of the freshmen Republicans elected in the 2010 congressional sweep.
After the vote, Kucinich told reporters that he had actually collected more Republican votes than Democratic because he focused solely on the constitutional issues, not the nature of the war in Libya. "Nowhere in this debate did I get into the merits or demerits of our involvement in Libya," he said, as though that was something positive.
Kucinich said the relative lack of support among Democrats was because of "strong appeals from the White House and the Democratic leadership." Pelosi spoke in the debate against the antiwar resolution, and the top three Democrats, including Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and James Clyburn, all voted against it.
The Ohio Democrat praised Boehner, saying, "the Speaker has taken a stand for the institution, and he may not have been ready to come as far as I wanted to go today, but we certainly took a step in the direction of accountability."
Friday's votes were a signal of the deepening divisions within the American ruling elite and its two political parties, in the face of the mass upsurge in the Middle East and North Africa, and the intractable obstacles they confront in all three ongoing wars--Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Last week, the House adopted by an overwhelming margin a legally binding amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, the main Pentagon spending bill, barring the deployment of US troops on the ground in Libya.
Two other antiwar measures have been narrowly defeated in the past 10 days. On May 26, the House rejected an amendment by liberal Democrat James McGovern of Massachusetts and conservative Republican Justin Amash of Michigan that would have required "an accelerated transition of military operations to Afghan authorities." It was defeated in a 204 to 215 vote.
On June 2, an amendment to prohibit the Department of Homeland Security from engaging in any activity in support of the war in Libya was defeated by an even closer margin, 208 to 213.
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