THE WITHDRAWAL VOTE.

THE WITHDRAWAL VOTE. Purgegate has been sucking up the oxygen recently among political junkies, but it's worth emphasizing that the saga of the congressional war supplemental bill has really taken a dramatic turn in the last two days toward a confrontation with George W. Bush himself over a Senate-House conference bill that does in fact include language calling for withdrawal from Iraq. When attention was focused on the House fight, the implicit assumption was that such a bill would never pass in the Senate anyway, so it was merely of symbolic importance whether Nancy Pelosi could hold her caucus together, present a united front, etc. But in fact, it's looking increasingly likely that, even if the Senate itself doesn't pass a bill including the withdrawal language, it will pass a conference bill that does.

Mitch McConnell indicated yesterday that, indeed, he was not going to fight tooth and nail to get that language out, and it would be up to the president to veto such a bill. As for the vote on the Senate bill (possibly happening today), even that one could be a nail-biter in terms of keeping the withdrawal language in:

Once the GOP motion [to strike the withdrawal language] comes to a vote, which Reid has indicated he would not seek to stop, McConnell is in line to keep Nelson and Pryor in his camp if Republicans do not strike the benchmarks. That could trigger a replay of the Iraq vote earlier this month, when Sen. Gordon Smith (Ore.) was the only Republican to vote with Democrats and the majority fell short, 48-50.

�I�m not announcing a count, but I think the vote [on March 15] was certainly helpful, and generally members like to be as consistent as possible,� McConnell said yesterday.

Yet Reid could still win over Pryor and Nelson, who have not explicitly revealed their votes. The supplemental reflects changes requested by Pryor, focusing on a classified campaign plan for Iraq that includes non-public deadlines for withdrawal. Those changes would fall out if the GOP�s motion to strike succeeds.

But then, of course, there's the conference. As Reid's spokesperson told The Hill, the goal is "to have the supplemental leave the floor with the withdrawal language in it � As far as getting it to conference, the House version already contains Iraq language, so it will be an issue [regardless of the Senate outcome]."

E.J. Dionne argued today that merely the fact that the House passed its bill last week is itself a really big deal. But for the House and Senate to successfully manage to produce a war supplemental bill that calls for ending the war -- to be clearly on record with that position, and to force the president to veto it -- would, of course, be much bigger.

--Sam Rosenfeld