Lugar reverses course

June 28, 2007

On Monday, Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) appeared to shake things up with a Senate speech in which he said Bush’s war strategy is not working and that the U.S. should downsize the military’s role in Iraq. Given Lugar’s stature in the GOP, it was perceived as a seminal moment.

Lugar’s spokesperson added, however, that the speech did not mean Lugar would switch his vote on the war. The senator crafted a high-profile speech on Iraq, sent shockwaves through the Hill, inspired Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) to also call for a troop reduction, but Lugar wasn’t committing to anything. He’s willing to break with his unflinching support for Bush’s war policy, but that’s about all he’s willing to do.

Yesterday afternoon, Lugar made clear that his rhetoric may be the full extent of his actions.

Lugar has no intention of acting on his rhetoric. Speaking this morning with NBC’s Matt Lauer, 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.”

What are we left with? A conservative Republican senator who’s willing to break with the president’s policy, unwilling to embrace the Democrats’ policy, and unable (so far) to offer some other alternative. What’s this worth? Time will tell.

Swopa argues, persuasively, that Lugar can hem and haw now, but at a minimum, the Indiana senator has moved the debate forward: “The good news about the Lugar et al. statements is that by creating a media fuss about ‘Republicans say it’s time to leave Iraq,’ they’ve kept the subject of withdrawal on the table and made it easier for Democrats to apply more pressure.”

Perhaps. All the buzz this week is that leading Republican senators are breaking with Bush on Iraq. They see the White House pushing them over a cliff, and they’re suddenly reluctant to go. This creates some momentum for opponents of the war, and will ratchet up the pressure when it comes time for these “serious” GOP lawmakers to actually cast a vote.

But this approach still counts on a sizable chunk on the Republican caucus to eventually act on their convictions (and fears). So far, a small handful are kinda sorta willing to talk the talk. I’ll be impressed when any of them start walking the walk.

For what it’s worth, Josh Marshall makes a compelling case that the 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.

More party over country from a repub. He knows the war policy is not working, but he’ll vote for more of it because his repub president wants it. Of all of the positions politicians have carved out for themselves, this one is truly despicable.

  • This is precisely why we shouldn’t get all excited just because a Republican in Congress says something.

    When the media and liberal bloggers make a big deal of Lugar’s speech, and Tony Snow and the right-wing spin machine pooh-poohs it, and they turn out to be right, that should teach us something?

    Let’s not cling to the illusion that Lugar’s speech and his subsequent clarification mean very much at all in net terms.

  • I don’t see any strategies in Iraq that will work either. The difference between Dems and Republicans is that Lugar’s default strategy leaves 100 more Americans dead every month for nothing. Continuing to do nothing has a devastating cost that Lugar doesn’t seem to give a damn about. We’re not accomplishing anything positive, we need to get out.

    Oh wait, he’s a Republican. Maybe if we put it in terms of the tens of billions of dollars that continue to be wasted he might get off his ass and push for change. Of course that money is mostly going to Republican-allied contractors so it’s all good for the Party of Chaos.

  • My feeling is that Lugar’s been sent out to essentially beg the president to be the one to make the changes necessary to end the war, before the Democrats manage to get enough Republican support to do it without Bush, and thus take credit for finally getting us out of Iraq.

    What sickens me is that I don’t see Lugar’s move as being as much principled as I do political; he may be the elder statesman, but he is also still a politician and a Republican and he’s looking ahead to the election season, and fears the albatross of Iraq being irrevocably hung around the Republicans’ necks if Bush doesn’t take action very soon.

    The sickening part is the knowledge that while these guys play political chess, more and more lives are being lost.

  • I used to have a lot of respect for Lugar, but for years now he has shown himself as just another partisan GOP hack, readily voting the party line, regardless of the consequences, and completely unwilling to lend support for anything that will improve the country if, in the process, it also provides a “Democrat” victory. If 60%+ of the population want withdrawal from Iraq, how can legislative methods designed to effect that be considered “partisan” – except by those who are themselves hyper-partisan?

  • From the CBR earlier this week…
    “* On a related note, Lugar told reporters today that the White House called him to ask for a meeting. “Lugar would not say who he is meeting with or when it would happen, but all indications are that it will be National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and it will take place later in the week.”

    1- Republican speaks out against the Bush war
    2- Media spins into a tizzy
    3- Said Republican is called to a meeting a the WH
    4- Republican backpedals like a unicycler

    What is the ace in the hole the WH plays to reel in these defectors? Do they threaten to shut off the money? Show them pictures of themselves in compramising situations? Write them big checks? Threaten to knee cap their families?

    If we could just figure this out we could flush Bush/Cheney into the history toilet.

  • before the Democrats manage to get enough Republican support to do it without Bush

    I’m sorry, but I just don’t see this happening. I think the Republicans would rather go through the 2008 elections with the Iraq albatross rather than validate the Dem position on the war. They’ve spent the entire time since the invasion justifying the thing, and their only hope long-term is the dolchstosselegende. Flip-flopping this late in the game won’t get them any credit, so they need to stay unified in order to blame the Dems for losing, as they are planning to do.

    The thing to understand is that Republican politics is purely pathological. They have dedicated themselves to a set of catastrophically wrong positions on nearly everything, and they are willing to sacrifice everything, including the the economy, the environment, and the constitution, in their drive to power. Even “respected elder statesmen” like Lugar are part of this same movement, even if they don’t look quite like the slavering hordes that form the party’s base.

  • Another No Peace, More War Movement sycophant acknowledges that fire burns but is unwilling to remove the American carcass from the furnace.

    What Dick Lugar doesn’t know is that there is a 12-step program available in communities across the country to help ReThugs get off the kool-aid. It’s called 70% of the American public and George W. Bush isn’t our Higher Power.

  • My feeling is that Lugar’s been sent out to essentially beg the president to be the one to make the changes necessary to end the war,

    Fair enough. And what’s their plan B, these guys who sent out Lugar?

    (This reminds me of nothing so much as Oliver being sent out to ask for more. And we all know how that went.)

  • Lugar (demonstrating temptation by reality): “I kind-sorta-maybe think the Emperor is just a wee bit wrong.”

    Emperor (in a fit of rage): Worthless liberal dog! Bow before me and beg forgiveness!!!

    Lugar (demonstrating ludicrous temerity that cannot be defined as merely bootlicking cowardice): Okay….

  • big surprise! a republican who won’t put his vote where his mouth is.

    the majority of americans want to get out of this war. those republicans who don’t recognize that, and insist upon voting against the wishes of these americans, will get what they deserve in the end.

  • sarabeth, part of the reason for my thoughts on Lugar is that I no longer trust the motives of anyone when it comes to making decisions about the war. I don’t believe that Lugar finally mustered up his principles to speak out on the war – not when, in almost the next breath, he was so quick to say that what the Dems had proposed up to this point was too partisan. He was quite clear that he was speaking to the president – asking him to end this war – and I have to ask myself why. Why would he do that when, within the Congress there exists the power to do that? The only reason I can come up with is that he doesn’t want the resolution of the war to be seen as being done on Democratic terms – he wants the Republican president to make the decision, to pull the strings, so that all the Republicans in Congress can take credit for it. And he’s pleading with the president to see that – and do something about it – so that the GOP can salvage something for the 2008 elections.

    The GOP has already had some defections, mainly from those who are up for re-election in 2008, and whose constituencies want us out of Iraq. There will be others who make that decision, as things continue to get worse in Iraq, and even thought the Lugars and the Voinoviches are also publicly stating that this thing is lost, they really, really do not want the American people to score one for the Dems.

    The day Lugar spoke in the Senate, he was called to the principal’s office, and the next morning, he was hedging. Why? Because they got to him, just like they’ve gotten to others.

  • What are we left with? A conservative Republican senator who’s willing to break with the president’s policy, unwilling to embrace the Democrats’ policy, and unable (so far) to offer some other alternative. What’s this worth? Time will tell.

    Talk is cheap, as Platoon Sergeant Hagel has demonstrated.

    “Walk the walk” or STFU, you treasonous scum. We should nominate a serious candidate next year to take on Hagel and take him out. Take out every “moderate” Republican who hasn’t got the spine to vote their beliefs, leave the fascists with no figleafs of moderation to hide behind, and take the futhermuckers to the mats. Get a veto-proof Senate and House and it won’t matter if the country is dumb enough to vote a third-rate actor smart enough to follow Spencer Tracy’s two rules of movie acting (“Learn your lines so you don’t stammer, and don’t trip over the furniture” as he told a young William Shatner during the filming of “Judgement at Nuremburg”) into the White House. “Ronnie II” will then be a “no sale”.

  • Senator Richard Lugar’s voting record on military issues can be found at: Senator Richard Lugar’s Voting Record

    Senator Richard Lugar’s history of speeches on the Iraq war can be found at: Senator Richard Lugar’s Record of Speeches

    Senator Richard Lugar’s ratings from special interest groups on military issues can be found at: Senator Richard Lugar’s Interest Group Ratings

    Project Vote Smart produces the National Political Awareness Test (NPAT), which essentially asks each candidate “Are you willing to tell citizens your positions on the issues you will most likely face on their behalf?” You can find Senator Richard Lugar’s responses to the NPAT at: Senator Richard Lugar’s NPAT

    For more information on Senator Richard Lugar’s position on military issues please visit Project Vote Smart or call our hotline at 1-888-VOTE-SMART.

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