Centrist Dems Calculate Carefully On Iraq
Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher, a prominent moderate Democrat from California, voted against more money for the war in Iraq last week, a move that may help her placate some left-wing critics in the blogosphere.
She also secured a promise that a separate measure she sponsored to deauthorize the use of force in Iraq will get a floor vote in September, when new wartime funding legislation will be considered.
The "no" votes cast by Tauscher, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and other moderate Democrats may help inoculate them against future attacks from anti-war activists, who continue giving the moderates political headaches, particularly in the blogosphere.
Tauscher's move to boost her deauthorization bill also came as war opponents were raining down calls and e-mails on Capitol Hill in a last-ditch, but unsuccessful, drive to defeat the funding bill. And she undoubtedly hopes that move will provide her still more ammunition against attacks from the left.
Tauscher said that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) promised that her measure, the Change the Course in Iraq Act, will move forward. It would revoke the 2002 congressional authorization to use military force in Iraq, a position supported by Tauscher before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
"The mission in Iraq no longer bears any resemblance to what Congress authorized four years ago," Tauscher said. "Repealing the congressional authorization for the war is the responsible way for the Congress to make it crystal clear to the president that Congress and the people we represent have had enough."
Tauscher introduced the bill March with a quartet of New Democrats: Reps. Harman, Joseph Crowley of New York, Artur Davis of Alabama and Adam Smith of Washington.
All five moderates voted against the Iraq funding bill Thursday, which passed with a majority of Republican votes.
Harman changed her mind on the funding measure shortly before it came to the floor. She had told Time magazine beforehand that she would support it.
In a lengthy statement explaining her vote, she said that the emergency military spending bill presented "two unsatisfactory choices." A vote for it would provide money but fail to "impose a responsible end to the combat mission," she said. A vote against it "will be manipulated to tell the troops … that we are not sending … support they so desperately need."
She called the latter interpretation "rubbish" and said her "no" vote signified a desire to "move past the fractured politics on Iraq and restore some sanity and bipartisanship."
The Iraq spending bill provided nearly $100 billion for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It contained political benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet but did not include a timeline for troop withdrawal, as many war opponents had sought.
President Bush, who had vetoed an earlier bill because it contained a withdrawal timetable, signed the new measure Friday without any public fanfare. And Democratic congressional leaders have vowed to keep pushing him to end the war when other defense appropriations are considered.
Tauscher, Harman and many other members of Congress were besieged by anti-war groups in the days leading up to the war vote.
MoveOn.org, a 3 million member group that backed a withdrawal timeline, argued against the bill, denouncing it as a capitulation to the White House.
Still, some Democratic moderates supported it, including House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.), a MoveOn target, and Rep. John Tanner of Tennessee, a co-founder of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition.
Both Tauscher and Harman had drawn earlier fire from liberal bloggers for their moderate views. At times, some bloggers even promised to support primary challenges against the two in 2008. Tauscher, for one, made it clear she's representing her district.
"After much thought, delieration and listening to my constituents, I voted against the supplemental appropriations bill," she said. "I cannot vote to give the president one more blank check."