The Washington Post reports today on how Democrats have revised their planned "first 100 hours" bill-passing extravaganza (which skews in the direction of domestic policy) to grapple head-on with the president's new Iraq plans, to be unveiled this week.
Late last week, she summoned the chairmen of the Armed Services, Foreign Affairs, intelligence, Homeland Security, and Oversight and Government Reform committees to plot a series of hearings. On Thursday, Democrats will call Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to appear before the House Foreign Affairs Committee to defend the war-strategy shift Bush will outline in a nationally televised speech.This all sounds great to me, and it's hard to find much evidence of strong opposition within the caucus to any of these change-arounds. The Post does, however, quote Celinda Lake expressing opposition:A House Armed Services Committee hearing with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, planned for Jan. 19 was abruptly moved to this Thursday after consultations with Pelosi. And leadership aides went to work on a response to Bush's speech that they hope will be delivered on national television after the president's appearance.
In the Senate, the Foreign Relations Committee will hold hearings Wednesday on the current situation in Iraq, then grill Rice on the president's plan Thursday. Pace and Gates will go before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Friday.
Some Democratic strategists urged party members to stick to their original plan, passing kitchen-table legislation every day, such as the minimum-wage increase and the stem cell bill, while Bush struggles with the war. Celinda Lake, a Democratic strategist and pollster, called it "the perfect juxtaposition."Briefly put, I think the very smart Lake is very wrong here. For Democrats to have, for the billionth time, doubled down on their core domestic policy strengths at the expense of saying anything at all about the war in Iraq would have not made for a "perfect juxtaposition" but rather one more credibility-undermining demonstration that the party just doesn't want to deal with national security issues. It may have been at least politically expedient in the short term to attempt this kind of subject-changing back when the war, and the GOP's national security posture, were popular. At this moment, and given what this president is set to propose, it would be inexcusable and indefensible. (Moreover, this is still more of a both/and rather than either/or situation -- the bill votes are all proceeding as planned this week, etc.)"People are not looking to their individual members of Congress to solve the Iraq war," she said. "For the House to be focused on it now would look like partisan bickering rather than getting on with the people's business."
--Sam Rosenfeld
