"This is No Time to Go Wobbly"

That's right. For the first time in the brief history of RSI, I'm leading with a famous Margaret Thatcher quote urging the first President Bush to stay firm in the lead up to the Gulf War.

In the same way, I want to urge the Democratic leadership to stay firm in the looming confrontation with President Bush over the funding of the current Iraq War. Matthew Yglesias is worried about confronting the Bush administratration about war funding "at this time" and suggests that the Democrats pass a bill that Bush can sign but only provide funding for three more months of war.

That way in three months time, with public opinion even more against Bush and against the war, he needs to come back and ask for more money. Then Democrats pass another supplemental with a withdrawal provision. If Bush vetos again, then give him another three months eventually.

This doesn't work. There's no reason to think that President Bush would be any less likely to veto the Yglesias Plan than the current Democratic plan. If Congress passed a three-month appropriation bill, Bush would veto the bill and say that the Democrats were just "playing politics" by funding the troops for such a short time. Even worse, Bush would be correct because the primary logic of using three month appropriations would be to build up political pressure on Republicans to vote for withdrawal deadlines. In other words, it would be playing politics.

It looks like the Democrats are faced with a fundamental choice when Bush vetoes the Iraq funding bill. On the one hand, Pelosi and Reid can cave, send Bush a bill that he wants, and wait to fight another day. In that case, however, the Democratic leadership will have proven Bush right about the original funding bill just being "political theater." I don't know what would be worse, caving in to a weak President or making Bush look like he knows what he's talking about.

On the other hand, the Democrats can stick to their guns and engage in the confrontation that Bush wants. The moderate version of the confrontation option would be for the Democratic leadership could use their majority position to push Bush to negotiate. From Wednesday's comments by Nancy Pelosi, that sounds like what she has in mind. The Dems also could take the "more confrontational" route of telling Bush to either accept the deadline bill or shut down the war. That's what I want, but maybe that makes me a "left-wing extremist" rather than someone who can get something done through the political system.

The obvious risk with any kind of confrontational strategy is that the Democrats could lose public support and be forced to give Bush what he wants. And it's a real risk because presidents usually do win these kinds of showdowns in the way that Clinton won over Gingrich and the Republican revolutionaries in 1995. However, there are several reasons to think that the risk will be worth taking. Most importantly, the public approves the idea of a troop withdrawal deadline by at least a 25% margin (59%-34%). That's a lot of ground for Bush to make up at a time that the surge doesn't look to be particularly successful and the administration is hamstrung by scandals. The Dems would have to really blow it to lose that much popular support in a short period of time and I don't see that happening. Both Pelosi and Reid are careful, circumspect leaders whose main skill is holding together diverse coalitions of Democratic legislators. I don't think that either would make the kind of spectacular mistake that would help Bush catch up.

Moreover, the Pelosi Democrats are different from the Gingrich Republicans in that they're not perceived as being over-aggressive bullies. Indeed, Peter Beinart is right that the public probably would respect the Dems more not less if they stood up to Bush. Finally, the Pelosi strategy of inducing negotiations sounds moderate in comparison to Bush's "my way or the highway" approach to the issue. She'll get credit for sounding more like an adult than the President. One of the things that did in Newt Gingrich was the broad and accurate perception that he was a jerk. That's also how people perceive President Bush at this point. Unlike Gingrich, Pelosi can look good while she pursues a confrontational strategy.

Ultimately, it looks to me like Pelosi and Reid have set up a fight they can win even if it does entail significant risk. I think they should go for it. This is definitely no time to "go wobbly."