Last week, Iraq war veteran and VoteVets founder Jon Soltz appealed for members of Congress to “put country above party” and vote against escalation in Iraq.

Majorities in both the House and Senate answered Soltz’s call. But at least 25 members of Congress caved to partisan pressure and voted in favor of escalation, despite having publicly criticized President Bush’s strategy in the weeks prior to the vote. Here are four examples:

Rep. Virginia Brown-Waite (R-FL): “It’s too little, too late, and should have been done a year ago. … I just get a feeling our country is being used.”

Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM): “I am not a supporter of a surge to do for the Iraqis what the Iraqis will not do for themselves.”

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ): “I have little confidence that a surge in troop levels will change the situation in Iraq in any substantive fashion. It seems clear that the violence in Iraq is increasingly sectarian, and inserting more troops in this atmosphere is unlikely to improve the situation.

Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH): “I am skeptical that a surge of troops will bring an end to the escalation of violence and the insurgency in Iraq… I’m absolutely against the surge.“

When it came time to vote, these four members — and 21 of their colleagues — couldn’t muster the courage to buck their own party and vote against escalation. These members appear to understand the danger of sending tens of thousands of U.S. troops into Iraq’s bloody civil war. They just don’t care enough to do something about it.

The full list of the “Party-Over-Country” 25: Read more

At the National Press Club yesterday for the press roundtable:

(HT: C&L)

During yesterday’s White House press briefing, Tony Snow tried to play down the neglect uncovered at Walter Reed by portraying it as old news. President Bush “certainly has been aware of the conditions in the wards where he has visited, Snow said, affirming that the administration was aware of Walter Reed’s conditions “before the articles appeared in the paper.”

The White House has since backtracked from Snow’s comments. In a small addendum added to the bottom of yesterday’s briefing transcript on the White House website, a note now reads that Bush “first learned of the troubling allegations regarding Walter Reed from the stories this weekend in the Washington Post,” and that he is “deeply concerned” by the conditions:

Following the reversal, Snow told the Washington Post that “he did not know why the president, who has visited the facility many times in the past five years, had not heard about these problems before.”

Asked yesterday if Bush may talk about this scandal at some point in the future, Snow answered, “No.“

Lithuania is “seriously considering” withdrawing its 53 troops from Iraq, a Defense Ministry spokeswoman said Wednesday. “It was the first time that Lithuania, a staunch U.S. ally, indicated it would reduce its commitment in Iraq.”

In July 2004, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) called Vice President Cheney “one of the most capable, experienced, intelligent and steady vice presidents this country has ever had.” But last month, McCain flip-flopped, attacking Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for their mismanagement of the war in Iraq:

The president listened too much to the Vice President. … Of course, the president bears the ultimate responsibility, but he was very badly served by both the Vice President and, most of all, the Secretary of Defense.

But today in an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America, Cheney said that McCain’s criticisms were nothing more than empty rhetoric: “John said some nasty things about me the other day and then next time he saw me ran over to me and apologized.” Watch it:

Commenting on McCain’s propensity to change his mind, Cheney added, “Maybe he’ll apologize to Rumsfeld.”

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Transcript: Read more