What prompted Senate majority leader Harry Reid to think he could outmaneuver Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell on which Iraq war resolutions would be voted on is anybody's guess. Reid never had a chance, and he lost badly. The media played the story as a simple case of Republicans, led by McConnell, blocking a debate on the Iraq war that was certain to be dominated by war critics. But that's not what happened--not even close.
Republicans were, in fact, ready for the ballyhooed week of debate that would include votes on two resolutions. Democrats would get a vote on their anti-President Bush, antiwar resolution. McConnell insisted Republicans be given a vote on the resolution of their choice. That resolution, authored by Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, promised to continue the funding of troops in Iraq.
Reid and Democrats panicked at the thought of having to vote for or against this measure, which didn't express an opinion on Bush's "surge" of 21,500 more troops in Iraq or on the war itself. Voting for the Gregg resolution would make it more difficult for Democrats to cut off funding later. They'd look like flip-floppers. But if they voted against it, they could be accused of not supporting the troops. So Reid refused to allow a vote on the Gregg resolution. McConnell responded by mounting a Republican filibuster Democrats couldn't overcome. And the Senate was prevented from proceeding with its planned week of debate on the Iraq war.
That Republicans won this encounter should have been clear
to everyone. A poisonous debate on Iraq, attracting massive press coverage that was bound to be unfavorable to Bush and his war plans, was averted. Democrats were denied the headline they craved, "Senate Rebuffs Bush on Iraq." And Republicans sent a message that they wouldn't be pushed around by Reid and the Democrats. A more succinct way of putting all this is that McConnell won and Reid lost.
"Our goal was not to kill the Iraq resolutions," McConnell says. "Our goal was to have the debate, but in a manner that was fair to both sides." To McConnell, fairness meant Reid could not impose his will on Republicans and determine which of their resolutions would be voted on. (For the Republican resolution, Reid favored the one authored by Senator John McCain that defended President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq but set rigid benchmarks the Iraqi government must meet.) As it turned out, Reid clumsily overreached. Without much trouble, McConnell collected enough Republican votes, plus Democratic senator Joe Lieberman's, to block Reid's gambit.
On Iraq and every other issue, the struggle in the closely divided Senate comes down to this: McConnell understands the situation and knows how to deal with it far better than Reid does. Republicans are the minority, 49 to 51, but the minority has advantages in the Senate. "The Senate is built for defense," McConnell says. "The House is built for offense."
The key tool in the hands of the Senate minority is the filibuster, which allows unlimited debate if 41 senators reject cloture, which shuts off debate after 30 hours. "If you have 41, you can dictate the process," McConnell says. "If you don't have 41, you get rolled." McConnell intends to keep Republicans from being rolled. So far, he and Republicans have defeated all four Democratic efforts to halt debate.
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