ShareThisBy EDWARD EPSTEIN
San Francisco Chronicle
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Speaker Nancy Pelosi suffered the most significant setback in her five months running the House when she backed down in the legislative battle with President Bush over paying for the war in Iraq, but even some of her critics suggest she and her top deputies had little chance of prevailing.
After more than three months of deadlock over Bush's request for war funding, the California lawmaker and Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada were forced this week to drop their effort to tie the money to a U.S. troop withdrawal and readiness standards for units being deployed into war.
Without those provisions -- which the House and Senate had passed before Bush vetoed them -- the leaders found themselves slammed by the anti-war left and mocked by Republicans.
Congressional scholars said the legislative maneuvering showed that Pelosi and Reid can't unilaterally change policy in Iraq until they can muster the two-thirds majorities necessary to override a veto by the Republican president.
The Democrats hold only slim majorities in both houses, which means the House speaker and Senate majority leader need GOP defections from the president before they can force an end to an increasingly unpopular war that has killed more than 3,400 U.S. military personnel, has left more than 20,000 wounded and has cost more than $500 billion.
"The thing to keep an eye on is the Republicans," said Ron Peters, a congressional scholar at the University of Oklahoma. "As long as Bush can hold the Republicans together and he's got a veto, he can prevail. But by next fall, if the war is as it is now, the Republican ranks will split."
A group of moderate GOP House members has already warned Bush personally that September will be the make-or-break period for them.
As speaker, Pelosi has multiple constituencies to please -- the public, which is increasingly looking to the Democrats to end the war; the most liberal Democratic activist groups; and the diverse House Democratic caucus she leads.
For now, "the Democratic base is very unhappy. Perhaps they expected too much," said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist. "The administration ought to be the one between a rock and a hard place. The irony is Bush and Vice President Cheney have managed to put Pelosi and Reid between a rock and a hard place.
"The Democrats can't end the war, and Pelosi understands that."
Some critics on the left, including some House members, said Congress should have sent Bush another bill with a withdrawal timetable in it, forcing him to veto the measure again and delay what he says are much-needed funds for military forces at war. Others suggest Democrats should simply refuse to appropriate any more money for the war at all.
But such high-wire tactics would fail given the narrow partisan divide in the House and divisions within Democratic House and Senate caucuses, Sabato said.
"Pelosi has 30 conservative Blue Dog members who would easily defect on any attempt to end the funding," Sabato said.
Also, Pelosi and Reid have vowed repeatedly that they won't cut off funds for Americans in combat -- and they didn't want to face such a charge by leaving town for Memorial Day without passing a spending bill.
"There's no way out, because to win the majority last November, they elected a new type of Democrat from suburban swing districts," Sabato added. These members are generally pro-military, although they want to get out of Iraq and are socially and fiscally conservative.
Pelosi can't alienate or weaken them, because getting those members re-elected in 2008 is key to keeping and increasing the Democrats' new majority.
