"Mr. President, you're leading us off a cliff. Stop!"

With Republicans realizing that the American people are growing weary of them sprinting away from a debate about our direction in Iraq, the Senate today voted 89-9 to move forward with a full debate on S.J. Res. 9, the United States Policy in Iraq Resolution of 2007.

The binding resolution, proposed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and cosponsored by 41 other Senators -- all from the Democratic caucus -- requires George W. Bush to begin removing troops from Iraq "not later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this joint resolution, with the goal of [full] redeploying, by March 31, 2008."

"It's far past time that we bring this misguided war in Iraq to a close," said Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI). "This is binding legislation that would bring to an end our involvement in what is perhaps the biggest foreign policy mistake in our country's history.

While this is a positive step forward, you can bet as sure as Bush will pardon Scooter Libby, that Senate Republicans will filibuster this bill from going any further. The vote today was simply to allow debate. The next vote will be to end debate (60 votes required), followed by a simple majority vote needed for passage.