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Only Collins and Coleman voted to continue debate on the Warner-Levin non-binding resolution. The other 19, including tough talk, no walk Chuck Hagel voted against the President's wishes.

Sununu flees

You think Sununu isn't feeling the pressure?

When Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.) saw reporters approaching him last week, he took off in a sprint, determined to say as little as possible about a nonbinding resolution opposing President Bush's troop-escalation plan, which is expected to come before the Senate today.

"You know where I stand," the senator, who is considered politically vulnerable back home, said repeatedly as he fled down stairways at the Capitol. "I'm still looking."

Still looking. He's looking for a way out. Last week, Chuck Schumer, head of the DSCC, in the process of promoting his new book on Imus and The Daily Show, said that he didn't think a binding resolution would be needed, because the republicans themselves would end the war before 08. But he's already moving toward a firmer stance. In an interview on myDD with Jonathan Singer, he goes farther than he went during his two interviews last week.

I think the President has so messed up Iraq. We'll do everything we can to stop this surge. If we can stop it - or if we can't, even - and we're going to try, but remember he can veto, so 67 votes is a hard thing to do. And I'm not talking about the non-binding resolution. I believe strongly that we have to go further and have something that really ratchets up the pressure on the President and has real teeth. I think this does have some teeth, in terms of public pressure, but I don't think it's the whole thing. We gotta go further.

Having said that, I think that Iraq is such a mess that the President himself, pressured by Republicans, is going to start pulling out troops by the beginning of 2008 because they're not accomplishing a darn thing. It's not helping in any way and it's an anchor tied to the foot of every Republican candidate.

Now I don't want it to be mistaken. If he doesn't pull out it will be a huge issue and we'll make it a huge issue. But I think we have to be prepared for the fact that it may well be that, forced by Republican pressure and just the total incompetence of what they've done - policing a civil war doesn't solve any problem in Iraq and doesn't solve any problem politically for them here at home - that it may be when November 2008 rolls around that there are half the troops or even less than half the troops we have now and they are on their way out.

This is a substantial movement from his earlier position. He's now saying that there will be binding bills passed, even if they are vetoed. This is the pressure that needs to be put on the Senate class of 2008. They can be with the president, or they can be with the people.

Sununu is looking for cover. There is no cover. Right now, Reid is speaking, and he is saying that they cannot stop the debate on Iraq. Cloture on the non-binding resolution may be voted. The debate will take place--on an appropriations bill, on a DoD funding bill. The debate will take place.

In some ways, having the republicans vote down this resolution is a short term loss and a long term win.

Norm Coleman Dumpster Diving

Whoo-boy. The stress must be growing. Norm Coleman hurt his head while diving in a dumpster.

No joke. WaPo. Funny, but not a joke.

Outgoing Allard Wants to End Federal Min Wage

Senator Allard (CO) proposed an amendment that would have eliminated the minimum wage, allow states to set their own levels. AFL-CIO has the details.

28 Senators voted for it, including some of our Class II favorites:

Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Cochran (R-MS)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Hagel (R-NE)
Inhofe (R-OK)
McConnell (R-KY)
Sununu (R-NH)

Note that there this list includes war waverer Sununu and war opponent Hagel.

Give them a call. Leave a comment about what they have to say.

Rocks and Hard Places

Hagel was the only Republican member of Foreign Relations to vote for his resolution.

The other members are Richard Lugar (IN), Bob Corker(TN), Norm Coleman(MN), Lisa Murkowsi (AK), John Sununu(NH) George Voinivich (OH), Jim Demin(SC), Johnny Isakson (GA), and David Vitter (LA).

The ones we care about here, besides Hagel, are Sununu and Coleman. Both have expressed reservations about the war, but both are tiptoeing around the issue, trying to triangulate it the way Lieberman did in his general election campaign. Note that the strategy worked for Lieberman. Lamont failed to define Lieberman as for the war.

This is seen by conventional wisdom observers as an indication that there may not be enough votes on the floor for passage.

The question for Democrats right now is whether to weaken the language just to get it passed, by adopting Condi's "augmentation" word instead of the dreaded E word.

But the bigger question which will grow and grow as what Hagel called an escalation without a plan fails, is do you let these guys get away with not taking a clear position on the war? And do we still have to worry about spineless Democrats?

Because the answer to the last question is rather amazingly, "yes, we do."--amazingly, that is, given how strong public opinion--the answer to the first question is easy. Act boldly, and speak strongly.

Another piece of conventional wisdom, as I heard from Schumer on Imus this morning, and as I read from him somewhere today, is that by late summer or early fall, this will have clearly failed, Bush will be losing Republicans left and right (especially the class II Republicans we follow here). Schumer's typical approach is not act boldly now, but to let them twist in the wind, and, just by the way, avoid taking a tough position. Clinton echoes this strategy.

Leave asideYou can't leave aside the fact that they are doing the moral equivalence of what the President and other war supporters are doing. They're putting their political skins ahead of American troops and innocent Iraqis. At this point, especially if you saw Cheney's apparently* delusional performance with Blitzer yesterday, it is very clear that this is a catastrophic failure, and the administration's plan is to just run out the clock, and leave it for Hillary to deal with. If there were some chance that having Americans shoot more Iraqis that civil war and resulting failed state could be avoided, then perhaps it would be worth. But when they can't even get members of parliament to stay in the country, let alone attend sessions, the "political solution" that is all the rage is clearly not in the cards.

The right thing to do is follow Kucinich's lead and pass the next 100 billion dollar appropriations bill under the conditions that it be used to schedule withdrawal and redeployment. This is the right thing to do because it's going to be done later, anyway, with the same post-withdrawal conflagration.

But this is also the right thing to do, politically. Right now, Bush has screwed both John McCain, by hanging the escalation around his neck, and the rest of his party, by not accepting the cover offered by the ISG. Right now, this is a Republican war. This is not the time, politically, for compromise and acquiescence. This is the time to take a bold stand, and force the Republicans either to whole-heartedly own this war, or to throw the President under the bus in the hopes of saving their seats. Taking a strong stand will stiffen the spines of the wavering, weak-willed Democrats who must have taken notice that MoveOn is spearheading a group that will identify Democratic elected officials who do not represent their districts on issues like Iraq.

It's time to make Norm Coleman, and, yes, Hillary Clinton, to make an up or down vote on this war. It's a win-win proposition. If the Republicans support the president, Democrats will have 60 seats in the Senate in 08. If they oppose the president, we get out of this war sooner rather than later.

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*Cheney is pretty clearly not delusional. He's just lying.

Hagel On Fire

Chuck Hagel is angry.

He points out that there is no strategy, no plan. The troops are being committed to Anbar and Baghdad without a plan:

I don't think we've ever had a coherent strategy. In fact, I would even challenge the administration today to show us the plan that the president talked about the other night. There is no plan. I happen to know that Pentagon planners were on their way to Central Com over the weekend -- they haven't even Team B'ed this plan.... There is no strategy. This is a ping-pong game with American lives.

via tpmMuckraker

Warner Denounces Escalation

Think Progress quotes CNN.

Sen. John Warner (R-VA) will introduce a resolution today “making clear that he does not support the President on increasing the troop levels in Iraq” and calling escalation “a mistake,” CNN’s Dana Bash reports. Warner’s resolution will be cosponsored by Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Ben Nelson (D-NE).

Warner, the former Armed Services Committee chairman, is a “very influential voice when it comes to military matters,” Bash reports, and until this fall had been “whole-heartedly behind the president and the war.” His new resolution “certainly…is not going to sit well with the White House.”

I've wondered whether Warner would hang up the towel rather than defend the administration position on Iraq. Looks like he is keeping his options open. This is kinda like Orrin Hatch supporting strict enforcement of the FISA regs. Warner will provide cover to other republicans in the group of 21 to oppose escalation--and, later on, to support withdrawal.

Update:

The Carpetbagger has more on the Warner position.