Perspective

Is it odd to anyone else that, in a story headlined "Senate steps up pressure on Iraq" that this is the opening sentence:

The Republican-controlled Senate easily defeated a Democratic effort Tuesday to pressure President Bush to outline a timetable for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

Then there's this:

Republicans countered with their own nonbinding alternative that the Senate approved on a 79-19 vote. Five Democrats sided with the majority party.

The last time I checked, there were 55 Republican Senators. Five Democrats siding with all of them would get you to 60 votes. Not all Republicans voted for the bill, either. So either I'm confused or they are.

Either way, the Republican measure would not have passed if the Democrats hadn't proposed theirs in the first place. And the Republican version is largely the same as the Democratic one anyway. But you wouldn't really get that from the AP version of the news at all.