Conventional wisdom has it that by vetoing the Iraq funding bill because of its timelines, President Bush has assumed the tactical high-ground in a battle with the Democratic Congress over the direction of the war. The Democrats, the thinking goes, now have no choice other than to give the President what he wants. But party leadership isn't rushing to produce a new bill, and with good reason: Conventional wisdom is wrong.
Republicans point to Bill Clinton's successful veto of the '95 Republican budget and assume that Bush can turn the same trick. But key differences exist. For starters, Bush is in the sixth year of his presidency -- not the third -- and the public has decided that he is wrong about the war. Moreover, the Clinton veto was over the budget, not an unpopular war in which Americans are being killed and maimed. Consider also that Bush does not have a convenient villain like Newt Gingrich among the opposition: The Republicans have tried and failed to demonize both Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Finally, Bush in no way has Clinton's political skills.
Perhaps the most significant development of last week was the release of poll numbers showing a decline in Bush's standing (an astonishingly low approval rate of 28%) after his veto of the funding bill. This means either that the public did not buy his "we can't tell the enemy when we're leaving" argument or -- more likely -- that the public dismissed the argument as irrelevant to its desire to bring the troops home. Despite the strong language used in the runup to the veto, the White House emerged politically even weaker than it had been, with the anti-war constituency strengthened.
If it wasn't clear already, it is now plain that the vast majority of Americans not only don't trust Bush and Cheney, they have no regard for them and have tuned them out. No matter what David Broder and his ilk think, Democrats are sitting pretty. While Bush is stuck with the success or failure of the surge, Democrats can select from a variety of options:
1. Give Bush the "clean" bill that he wants and keep their powder dry for the 2008 budget wars. From a narrow tactical perspective, this must be tempting. Bush gets what he asks for, then flounders. Try as he might (and he would try), he couldn't blame Congress when the surge fails. But this option has a major problem. Since the war will continue, American soldiers will keep dying while the Democrats in Congress play politics. This would alienate the party's base at a time when party leadership has finally realized that the base reflects broad public opinion about the war.
2. Submit a bill with benchmarks but no dates. While this would attract bipartisan support, it's also toothless, and Bush would happily sign it. The Democrats are winning the public relations battle, so why help out Congressional Republicans by letting them claim that they voted to get tough with the Iraqi parliament? As with the first choice, the base will not take kindly to this, nor will independents. It is nothing but a cynical attempt to convince people that the emporer is indeed wearing clothes, and the party should steer clear of it.
3. Give Bush a "clean" bill, but limit funding to a few months. The administration claims that the surge will show results by the fall. If it hasn't, Republicans in Congress will be frantic to end the war. The administration will attempt a game of bait-and-switch by arguing that the surge shows "progress" and that it needs a few more months to really bear fruit. This a "give 'em enough rope" approach that will no doubt appeal to many Congressional Democrats as it lets them put off a hard fight for a few months while arguing that they will be better positioned to tighten the screws on the president.
4. Assuming they can round up the votes again, resubmit the same bill.This is the Edwards approach, and it has much to recommend it. Why give an inch when the public supports you? When you think about it, this option is actually a compromise position. After all, it continues to fund the war, albeit conditionally. At this juncture, this position must seem reasonable to anyone not drinking the administration's Kool-Aid.
5. Submit a stronger bill that funds disengagement from Iraq but not continuance of the war. We can dream, can't we? Maybe the votes aren't there now, but in six months this won't seem far-fetched in the least.