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THE POST-VETO FIGHT. I think it's safe to say that Democrats exceeded the expectations of everyone -- including themselves -- in their ability to pass supplemental bills in both chambers calling for withdrawal from Iraq. The strategic and substantive debates now turn to responding to the president's inevitable veto of a bill coming out of conference. One option would simply be to hold the caucus together to keep passing the same bill endlessly. Another option, actually one that Matt tossed out to me in conversation in the office yesterday, is described in the aformentioned Washington Post article today:
Conservative Democrats also discussed alternatives for providing troop funding, if the standoff proves to be prolonged. For instance, Reps. Dennis Cardoza (Calif.) and Mike Ross (Ark.) suggested that the war funding be parceled out in three-month increments to force Bush to keep coming back for more.I believe what's meant here is that, post-veto, the withdrawal language would be stripped from the bill, but the supplemental would only cover a three-month period, at which point Bush would be forced to deal with another supplemental with withdrawal language included -- and the process would be repeated over and over. To the extent that fears of this fight repeating the dynamics of the 1995-6 budget showdown prove well-founded -- and, to be sure, they may not -- that sounds like an approach worth discussing. At any rate, there's good reason to continue to feel bold in this fight when those on the other side remain as intransigent and weirdly unaware of the irony of their own rhetoric as, say, John McCain is in this quote to the Post: ""The war will be funded ... And we will give these young people a chance to succeed, not a signal that we're going to depart at a certain date and divorce totally from reality on the ground." [emphasis added] Who's divorced?
--Sam Rosenfeld
