December 05, 2023 02:16 PM UTC

Tuberville Folds To Lauren Boebert's Dismay

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Washington Post’s Liz Goodwin reports, Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville announced today that he is dropping most of his unilaterally imposed holds on military promotions, ending an impasse that had become a major bipartisan controversy as frustrated fellow Republicans finally joined with Democrats to demand Tuberville’s ten-month grandstand end:

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) announced Tuesday that he would lift his blanket hold on military promotions, ending a nearly 10-month standoff over a Biden administration abortion policy that made the former football coach the target of bipartisan ire.

The hold, which Tuberville began in February, applied to all senior military promotions, and hundreds of officers were caught up in its net. As officers increasingly complained of the toll on military readiness and morale, and as a war raged in the Middle East, Tuberville faced increasing pressure from his fellow Republicans to drop the hold.

He has now narrowed his hold to the 10 or so promotions at the four-star rank. Tuberville said he relinquished the hold because he wanted to keep Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) from bringing up a vote to get around his maneuver. He did not receive any concessions he previously demanded, such as a change to the military funding bill to address the abortion policy.

“We got all we could get,” he told reporters.

Colorado’s Rep. Jason Crow expressed relief today that Tuberville was finally relenting, but called out Tuberville for jeopardizing national security for (emphasis added) “personal political gain.”

Tubberville jeopardized national security and disparaged a lifetime of service for some of our finest military leaders.

Weaponizing servicemember’s hard-earned promotions *for personal political gain* is a malicious misuse of power and beneath his office.

Now do the right… https://t.co/xNiUCxNGUi

— Rep. Jason Crow (@RepJasonCrow) December 5, 2023

As the standoff dragged on over the summer and fall, Tuberville came under increasing fire from fellow Republicans increasingly concerned about the negative impact on military readiness caused by the failure to promote officers into key positions. But for Colorado’s most flamboyant “warrior for the babies” Rep. Lauren Boebert as recently as last month was stoutly defending Tuberville’s holds as the Colorado Times Recorder reported:

Boebert was asked if she continues to support Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, of Alabama, who has blocked hundreds of military promotions to protest the Defense Department’s abortion policy.

“Sen. Tuberville has some righteous reasons; You should look into those reasons and you’ll understand more,” Boebert responded, [Pols emphasis] defending his ongoing hold which, at over nine months, is drawing criticism from Republicans as well as Democrats.

That puts Boebert squarely on the wrong side of this controversy, preferring grandstands over wedge issues to the much weightier matter of military readiness. Tuberville’s abuse of Senate power to grandstand against abortion with the military as his hostage is ending in disgrace, and it deserves to. While not out of character for Boebert, who disrupted a hearing on her own legislation to show off dead fetus pics, backing Tuberville while Tuberville got backed into a corner is another prime example of Boebert’s atrocious judgment.

The word that describes Boebert best is “unserious.”