Partisan bickering rises in Congress
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By Carl Hulse New York Times - Published: September 22, 2007
WASHINGTON — With the Senate sinking into a legislative quagmire over Iraq, lawmakers and their allies are shifting to what has proved to be more-solid ground when it comes to the war: political recriminations.
Every twist and turn of this week's grinding Senate stalemate was accompanied by a new round of political ads and accusations. Republicans were portrayed as putting loyalty to President Bush before support for strained troops, while Democrats were characterized as being beholden to the ultra-left, as embodied by MoveOn.org. The partisan clamor will only grow louder as the policy fight recedes.
"This is a political consultant's dream, this war," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., referring to the myriad possibilities for 30-second spots to be found in the multiple votes on the war.
In many respects, the Senate showdown was always more about political positioning than troop positioning, since virtually no one expected any of the central Democratic efforts to become law and force a change in war strategy. Even if a deployment plan or withdrawal timetable were to reach a 60-vote threshold to pass it, Bush would veto the bill and the search would be on for 67 votes to override — currently an unattainable number.
But none of the proposals came close to passing. The latest Democratic effort to require a withdrawal within nine months died Friday by an anticlimactic margin of 47-47, a slip in its support since it was last considered in July.
Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., both Democrats, pledged to try again next week with a watered-down version that could be more acceptable to swing Republicans. "The stakes are simply too high to stop what we're doing," Levin said.
But for most in Congress, the current war debate effectively ended Wednesday, when a limit on troop rotations put forward by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., was torpedoed by Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., a former backer.
The impasse leaves both parties in an uncomfortable political posture. Democrats have yet to fulfill the promise of their 2006 election sweep by forcing a reduction of troops in Iraq, fraying the patience of their antiwar supporters. Republicans have held off Democrats only to confront the possibility of going before the voters next year to answer for tens of thousands of troops remaining on the ground fighting an unpopular and expensive war.
"I am really not happy with it, not because of the politics, but because it tells the American public this Congress is so divided," Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., said of the standoff. He is one of those Republicans who will be on the ballot next year.
For the moment, Republicans say they have won by not splintering in September, as had long been predicted. They have been heartened by military gains that they say offer at least the chance of political improvement in Iraq, though they are realistic that national reconciliation may not occur.
And they say Democrats were badly undermined by the now famous "Petraeus or Betray Us" ad by MoveOn.org, which rattled Republicans who were considering joining Democrats and made some Democrats tentative in their questioning of Gen. David H. Petraeus during his testimony last week.
"The Petraeus ad outed MoveOn as being too extreme for the American people," said Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., the co-chairman of the National Republican Committee.
Democrats acknowledge that the MoveOn ad was a distraction and illustrated the difficulties of working with liberal advocacy groups, which can be invaluable in rallying supporters and spreading the party message but have their own agenda outside the party.
But Democratic officials also say the uproar over the ad is a Republican effort to deflect attention from the war — and that it will not protect Republicans indefinitely. From their perspective, many Republicans have committed themselves to Bush's course against their own better judgment, and may eventually have to pay the political piper.
"To my dismay, not enough Republicans who I know don't support the president were not able to make the leap," said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D- Del., the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Biden said Republicans were playing a risky game by sticking with the president in the face of public opposition, banking on real improvements in Iraq or the ability to shift policy positions quickly next year if conditions deteriorate rapidly in Iraq.
Democrats and antiwar groups worked quickly this week to try to cement the current stances of the Republicans. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who is up for re-election next year, was criticized in a press release issued Friday by the state's Democratic Party for not backing Levin's proposal even though she had voted for some Democratic proposals, including Webb's. "Collins continues support for war in Iraq," read the press release's headline.
Earlier this week, MoveOn spent $100,000 for an ad in Kentucky aimed at Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, for organizing opposition to Webb's plan to give troops more down time between deployments. "Republicans who brought us this awful war turned their backs on the men and women who fight it," a narrator said. "Mitch McConnell. The Republicans. A betrayal of trust."
McConnell fired back: "Let's take sides. General Petraeus or MoveOn.org. Which one are we going to believe?"
The impasse in the Senate is influencing the Iraq debate in the House. Democratic leaders there had been awaiting the outcome of the Senate debate to plot their own strategy, hoping to be able to rally around the troop deployment restrictions. With that dead in the Senate for now, House Democrats are rethinking their approach.
Still to come are spending measures that could provide the foundation for more Iraq-related legislation. Yet without a breakthrough in the Senate, it appears that the debate is stalled for now and will last well into next year's campaigns.
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