Beyond the Dome

What can you say about a presidential race where the two likely nominees -- both senators -- are attacking each other over a vote where they were the only senators who didn't show up?

At a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee this morning, John McCain criticized Barack Obama for opposing a resolution last year, sponsored by Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona and Independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, that said Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps should be designated a terrorist organization.

"Over three quarters of the Senate supported this obvious step, but not Senator Obama. He opposed this resolution because its support for countering Iranian influence in Iraq was, he said, a 'wrong message not only to the world, but also to the region,'" McCain said this morning. "Holding Iran's influence in check, and holding a terrorist organization accountable, sends exactly the right message -- to Iran, to the region and to the world."

Obama's rapid-response team fired back, saying Obama had no problem with labeling the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organization. Instead, he says he objected to another section of the Kyl-Lieberman resolution that said the structure of the U.S. military presence in Iraq would have "critical long-term consequences" for the future of the Middle East, including Iran's influence. Obama said he didn't want any linkage between sanctions against Iran and keeping troops in Iraq.

But it's all a bit of a hypothetical debate -- because McCain and Obama were the only two senators who didn't show up for the vote on the resolution in September. It was adopted 76-22, which means the other 98 senators all took an official position that day.

Instead, McCain had to fudge his involvement this morning, saying he was "pleased to join Senators Lieberman and Kyl in backing an amendment" aimed at Iran. Obama's team had to quote his press releases to explain his position.

At least when Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton argued over the resolution in their debates last fall, she had actually cast a vote on the issue. She voted for the resolution after Kyl and Lieberman took out language that would have declared it United State policy to "combat, contain, and roll back" Iran's destabilizing activities in Iraq.