As recently as a few months ago, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) was just another part of Team GOP when it came to the war. He voted with the party to give Bush anything and everything the White House wanted, he criticized Dems’ proposals, he refused to ask questions, and he spurned any efforts at administrative oversight. Domenici, like practically every other lawmaker with an “R” after his or her name, went so far as to say withdrawal timelines “encourage terrorists.”
Today, Domenici appears to have come around to embracing the Dems’ policy of a year-and-a-half ago.
Today at a press conference in Albuquerque, Domenici announced a shift in his policies, stating that he now supports decreasing the U.S. troop presence in Iraq. From his press release:
“I want a new strategy for Iraq. I continue to completely support the men and women in the American Armed Forces. They have not failed us. It is the Iraqi government that is failing to make even modest progress to help Iraq itself or to merit the sacrifices being made by our men and women in uniform. I am unwilling to continue our current strategy.
“I have carefully studied the Iraq situation, and believe we cannot continue asking our troops to sacrifice indefinitely while the Iraqi government is not making measurable progress to move its country forward. I do not support an immediate withdrawal from Iraq or a reduction in funding for our troops. But I do support a new strategy that will move our troops out of combat operations and on the path to coming home.”
Domenici has decided to cosponsor S.1545, which embraces the recommendations in the Iraq Study Group Report. It calls for creating the conditions that could allow for a drawdown of combat forces by March of 2008, but does not set a deadline.
Domenici is up for re-election next year. Just thought I’d mention it.
For those keeping score at home, there are now two Republican senators (Hagel and Smith) who actually support the Dems’ policy, and four (Lugar, Voinovich, Warner, and Domenici) who have broken with the Bush policy and expressed support for some kind of draw-down in U.S. forces. Throw Snowe, Collins, Coleman, Sununu, and Specter into the mix and we might even get to double digits by August.
I’m reluctant to spoil the fun, and I’m delighted Domenici has seen enough of Bush’s policy to know it doesn’t deserve support, but I’m not altogether convinced that anyone should count on him to support a genuine, reality-based policy.
Lugar, for example, delivered a terrific speech, denouncing the president’s war policy. The very next day, Lugar said that congressional measures aimed at curtailing U.S. military involvement in Iraq, including “so-called timetables, benchmarks,” have “no particular legal consequence,” are “very partisan,” and “will not work.” One suspects that Domenici will come to the same conclusion.
What we have here are scared Republicans who finally willing to break with the president and stop endorsing failure, but unwilling to cross the aisle. It’s incremental progress, but a) Domenici and others will probably keep voting against important Democratic proposals; and b) if it took these guys all this time to get to the where Dems were a year ago, there’s no telling how long it will take them to get to where Dems are now.
That said, Josh Marshall recently made a compelling case that, at a minimum, the broader trend is moving in the right direction.
[E]ventually — maybe as soon as September — public opposition will become so overwhelming that the Democrats may be willing to really force the matter and not worry about lacking any bipartisan cover. Or maybe by September enough Republicans will see the numbers and give in and give the Democrats their veto-proof majorities.
However it happens, whatever gives way first, the trend is unmistakable. And even if the Republicans can maintain unity and defy political gravity through 2008 they can see as well as anyone what will happen if they go into the 2008 election with sub-30% support on the defining issue of the day.
The key is — for some liminal period over the next several months — there’s still a paradoxical safety in numbers for Republicans, sticking with the president. But no one wants to be the last one to the door. If you’re a Republican congressman and you’ve been carrying the president’s water on Iraq for years you don’t want to be on the losing side when the Congress finally ends the war in spite of the president. At that point, even if you flip flop and start saying we’ve got to change course and try to get on the right side of public opinion, then you’re probably just doubly screwed. And if it’s mid-2008 at that point you’re really not in a good place. […]
The truth is that the president is playing a very high-stakes game of chicken with his fellow Republicans. He’s driving a hundred miles an hour toward the cliff, way too fast to jump out of the car without risking serious injury. But as the cliff gets closer, they’ll start to jump.
Something to look forward to.