Just Say No...

...to escalation.

In both the House and the Senate, Democrats prepare to pass resolutions telling the President he's on his own. Hoping to get the point across without running headlong into constitutional questions about the President's power to wage war, senators and representatives plan to send a message that this is the wrong move, and that it's not what the country wants.

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Democratic leaders said Tuesday that they intended to hold symbolic votes in the House and Senate on President Bush’s plan to send more troops to Baghdad, forcing Republicans to take a stand on the proposal and seeking to isolate the president politically over his handling of the war.

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In both chambers, Democrats made clear that the resolutions — which would do nothing in practical terms to block Mr. Bush’s intention to increase the United States military presence in Iraq — would be the minimum steps they would pursue. They did not rule out eventually considering more muscular responses, like seeking to cap the number of troops being deployed to Iraq or limiting financing for the war — steps that could provoke a Constitutional and political showdown over the president’s power to wage war.

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“If you really want to change the situation on the ground, demonstrate to the president he’s on his own,” said Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. [D-Del.], chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. “That will spark real change.”

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But Republican officials conceded that at least 10 of their own senators were likely to oppose the plan to increase troops levels in Iraq. And Democrats were proposing their resolution with that in mind, hoping to send a forceful message that as many as 60 senators believed strengthening American forces in Baghdad was the wrong approach. Democratic leaders said they expect all but a few of their senators to back the resolution.
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Sixty senators is a mandate. Especially when they come from blue states, I'd argue, because, with the exception of Texas, all of the most populous states are blue. It might be fun to break down exactly what percentage of the population those sixty senators represent and send that information to the White House with the resolution opposing the "surge." I wonder if the President and Mr. McCain and Mr. Lieberman could still say, in the face of that sort of evidence to the contrary, that the mid-terms were not a referendum on the war in Iraq.

In November, we didn't just ask for a different war policy. We demanded a policy that will bring this war to its conclusion.