Will Republicans ‘pull the plug’ on the war in August?

April 3, 2007

Over the weekend, NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell appeared to have quite a scoop — she noted on the Chris Matthews Show that Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, recently sat down for an exclusive chat with Senate Republicans, who told him that they’ll end their support for the war in August unless there’s “real progress.”

Mitchell’s report generated plenty of questions, but there were two main angles: 1) why would Petraeus give a briefing to members of one party and not the other; and 2) are a sizable number of Republicans really ready to concede in August that the war needs to end?

Last night, on MSNBC’s Hardball, Mitchell backtracked on the first point, telling viewers that Petraeus held a “closed circuit briefing” for senators of both parties, “Democrats as well as Republicans.” But on the latter, Mitchell confirmed her report — an untold number of Republican senators are poised to bail on Bush in just four months.

MATTHEWS: What is Petraeus, General Petraeus saying over there about — what’s he been telling people about that?

MITCHELL: Well, it’s a good thing you bring that out. He’s been telling senators — he had, in fact, a closed-circuit briefing for the senators, Democrats as well as Republicans, and he is telling them that he will report some progress, that he hopes to be able to report some progress by August. And in turn, what many Republican senators are saying, Chris, is that if there isn’t real progress by the end of the summer, that’s when there are going to really break with the president, that they’re going along with this surge out of respect for the generals. But in his closed briefing — they went over to the Pentagon and had that briefing, Democrats as well as Republican senators, and he made it clear to them that he thinks he can report some progress.

Mitchell may be mistaken, but if she’s right, we’re looking at the possibility of a significant GOP crack-up over the war.

Unfortunately, Mitchell’s report seems to raise more questions than answers. For example, given the seriousness of this scoop, why hasn’t she reported it for NBC News, preferring instead to mention it on Chris Matthews’ talk show (twice)?

For that matter, Mitchell has referred to “moderate Senate Republicans” bailing on Bush. But just how big a group are we talking about here? Two, maybe three senators?

Greg Sargent raised a few other points that need clarifying.

What was the true nature of their [the Republican senators’] warning to Petraeus? Was it, “If this doesn’t work by late August, we’re definitely out of here, and we’re sticking together on this”? Or was it more along the lines of, “Hey, we’d love to see some progress by Labor Day but if not, we should grab a coffee and chat about this again”? Did these Senators confide outright that they saw no hope for the “surge” to work but backed it anyway?

Barring an explanation from Mitchell, I guess we’ll see what happens in August. If recent history is any guide, GOP “moderates” will talk a good game … right up until they say, “OK, six more months.”

But if the report is accurate, and more than a few GOP senators break ranks and give up on the war, it’s likely to be a seismic event in DC. Stay tuned.

Andrea Mitchell has been used as a tool before, and it would not surprise me if she’s being used again. This is nothing more than an unsubstantiated rumor at this point that could well have been orchestrated by the White House itself, so I’ll believe it when I see it happen and not before.

Karl Rove is “The King of Headfakes” if nothing else, and at this stage of the game an effective distraction is worth its weight in gold to the sinking ship that is the Bush administration.

  • Raise your hands, everyone who would believe Andrea Mitchell if she told you it was Tuesday, without getting independent confirmation from two separate sources.

    Thought so.

  • How prophetic Bush’s comment was last year: “I’m sticking with this war, even if my only supporter is Barney.”

    Yup. Except Barney = McCain. Same difference.

  • I think a lot of them will bail, because otherwise they will be pounded into bits by the American people, who by then will be TOTALLY fed up with their kids constantly rotated into a civil war until they finally come home in a wheelchair or a bag.

    Some of the purple-state Republicans will throw the Decider and his war under their individual busses because it’s all about politics, and the politics of this mess probably will not get better for them by August.

    Red state Republicans will make this trainwreck a joy to watch.

  • I think a lot of Republicans will bail on Bush by August; I don’t see that as a scoop; I use as my gage a lot of my ditto head In-laws who are as disgusted as I am, but even more so because they had very high expectations for the shrub. If these people want to get re-elected, they have to distance themselves from the madness. Nobody is listening to Bush anymore; he’s not even a joke anymore; he’s a tragedy. Anyone who is laughing at him is not paying attention.

  • I forgot to add that (if Andrea the Tool’s reports are true) isn’t it ironic how some Republicans are obviously going to finally decide to “cut and run” for political reasons?

    Contrast that with most of the Democrats, who wanted us out of that mess even when the mainstream political wind was not blowing clearly in that direction.

  • Is anyone else slightly skeptical about the timing that was announced here? The cabal doesn’t roll out any new product in August. Why, it almost sounds to me like the rest of the Republican’ts are upset that the Vacationer in Chief takes a month off every August (whether he deserves it or not)…

  • If one of those senators is Arlen Specter, does anyone think he will actually maintain that position, or will he change his mind and support the president?

    When has he done otherwise…………ever???

  • Let me repeat and expand on what I wrote yesterday about this Mitchell “scoop”. It is likely designed to give cover to “moderate” Republicans to do nothing at the moment. Plus, since no one is on record about an August deadline, they can do nothing in August without appearing to go back on their word.

  • She got the attendees wrong and the meeting media wrong.

    I highly doubt the part we want to be true is anything but a figment of her imagination or some other hacks imagination.

  • I guess we’ll see what happens in August. If recent history is any guide, GOP “moderates” will talk a good game … right up until they say, “OK, six more months.”

    They key word here is “progress.” Tools from Bush and Cheney to McCain and Lieberman have been touting “progress” ever since the mission Accomplished speech.

  • According to TAPPED, Grover Norquist thinks Bush could flipflop on Iraq and get away with it, because the koolaid Republicans worship HIM, not his policies:

    …I got to talking with Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, whose thoughts about how the Republican base would react to a withdrawal from Iraq seem in sync with Andrea Mitchell’s report (via TPMCafe) that G.O.P. Senators are ready to get out and are giving the president’s surge until August to fail before saying so and breaking with him.

    Said Grover:

    “The base isn’t interested in Iraq. The base is for Bush. If Bush said tomorrow, we’re leaving in two months, there would be no revolt.”

    It sounds like Bush is the most vigorous hold-out in a party that is finally coming to its senses that withdrawal can and should be on the table; it also sounds like G.O.P. leaders would much prefer him to come around on Iraq so they don’t have to start opposing him on it publicly.

    http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/04/post_3321.html#016119

  • I don’t know if Andrea’s report has any truth to it, but with the ’08 campaign season kicking into high gear on Labor Day of ’07, Republican incumbents are going to have to take a firm stand on the war for the campaign seaon by this fall. I think Mitchell tipped the meme that’s going to be used by Republican triangulators through the summer: The generals are going to win or lose the war, not the president or the Repubs. This fall’s campaign trail fashions will feature ass-covering Repubs with “the generals blew it” lapel pins. The military will get thrown under the bus to pay for Republican sins.

  • I will not buy so much as one syllable of what that “plaything for the Reich” has said until someone shows me a list of Democratic Senators who were part of this closed-circuit conference. Until that happens, then this “event” never took place, and NBC really needs to do “an emergency performance evaluation” (read: late-night termination of employment scenario) on Mitchell….

  • Bush could pull out of Iraq, predict a worsening debacle, and blame it on the defeatist Democratic-controlled congress and a left wing negativist media. It might not save the thug party in 08, but after that who knows? It’s not as if it hasn’t worked before.

    Unless the Democratic party can firmly brand the whole thug party with this disaster and all the other impending ones(energy, environment, financial, terror, …), a potential democratic winner in 08 could be looking at one term, at best.

  • “[U]nless there’s ‘real progress.’” Well, there’s a loophole you can fly a C-130 through. Since they steadfastly refused to define any benchmarks before jumping on the surge liferaft, they can define “progress” (or the lack thereof) any way they find convenient at the time. Big whoop.

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