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 News from Around the Americas | July 2007 
US Democrats Have Daggers Drawn for Bush
 Stephen Collinson - Agence France-Presse
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| | US President George W. Bush lost his special trade power at midnight Saturday as opposition Democrats flexed their new grip on Congress and refused White House appeals to renew it. "Our legislative priorities do not include the renewal of fast-track authority," House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, seen here in June 2007, and other leading Democrats said in a statement. (AFP/Tim Sloan) |
With daggers drawn for a weakened White House, congressional Democrats return from a short recess this week plotting to further undermine President George W. Bush's waning political sway.
Even as Bush's signature immigration reform bill was strangled in the Senate last month, Democratic leaders were mapping out new misery for a president beset by rock-bottom poll ratings, the three bloodiest months for US troops in Iraq since the war began in 2003 and a fraying Republican support base.
Nearly half a dozen Republicans Senators recently broke ranks with Bush urging him to change course in Iraq.
After a six-week hiatus, Democrats plan an new attack on the unpopular war, and have besieged the White House with subpoenas over simmering legal and constitutional showdowns.
A House of Representatives committee meanwhile is planning on making political hay by probing Bush's decision to commute a two-and-a-half year sentence imposed on former White House aide Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, over a scandal sparked by the leaking of a CIA spy's identity.
"Republicans will have the opportunity to not just say the right things on Iraq, but vote the right way, too, so that we can bring the responsible end to this war that the American people demand and deserve," said Senate Majority leader Harry Reid.
But it is unclear whether the new Democratic attacks on Iraq will be any more successful than previous ones.
Bush forced the Democrats into a climb-down in June on their crusade to insert troop withdrawal guidelines in an emergency war budget.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to introduce a bill within weeks to authorize troop redeployments to start within four months and to be completed by April 1, 2008, a formula Bush has already blocked once with a presidential veto.
Senate Democrats will introduce their own attempts to force Bush to accept troop withdrawal timelines, extend rest periods for troops between deployments and curtail his congressional authorization to wage war.
Senate sources said veteran Senator Robert Byrd, and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will frame an amendment to a Defense Authorization bill that would sunset Bush's authorization to wage war in Iraq in October - five years after it was granted.
Meanwhile, Senators Carl Levin and Jack Reed will propose an amendment that would require a troop withdrawal to begin within 120 days of becoming law, The New York Times reported Sunday.
Democratic tactics appear designed to fracture the president's firewall of Republican support for his Iraq policy.
Currently, Democrats, who have attracted only a couple of Republican votes on anti-war measures, cannot pile up the needed 60-vote Senate super-majority to force Bush's hand.
But his support-base seems to be eroding. Republican Senator Richard Lugar, a reluctant rebel, last month warned the "surge" would not work, and fellow Senator George Voinovich recommended a disengagement.
Thursday, another key Republican Senator Pete Domenici also called for a change of course, and on Saturday Senators Lamar Alexander and Judd Gregg joined the growing chorus urging a new strategy.
All eyes in the next few weeks will be on respected fellow Republican John Warner, whose symbolic weight could buckle the Bush support base in the Senate, and give other senators cover to break with the president.
Though keen to skewer Bush, Democrats who grabbed control of Congress in last November's elections have their own political woes.
Polls show the public is even less happy with lawmakers than with the president.
Reid admitted last month the party may have set the bar too high by letting supporters think it could end the war.
The White House on Thursday got its retaliation in first against returning lawmakers.
"They're more interested in investigations, they're more interested in political mud fights than they are in actually getting real legislation passed," said Scott Stanzel, a White House spokesman.
Senior Republicans in the House and the Senate say Bush will have little option but to change course in Iraq once a report the surge policy is delivered in September by General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq.
Democrats have also threatened to take the White House to court - unless it cooperates with probes into the firing of federal prosecutors last year, which Bush foes say were carried out for political reasons.
In another legal tussle, the Senate Judiciary Committee last month slapped subpoenas on the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office over a warrantless wiretap program. |
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