I’ve been watching numerous people on liberal/progressive blogs get worked up over the Senate Democrats’ proposal for a nonbinding resolution against Bush’s escalation plan, arguing that it was a purely cosmetic bill that accomplished nothing.
The weird thing is, today, Senate Republicans filibustered the nonbinding resolutions. The Republicans who sponsored the bills even joined the filibuster. Now, if this nonbinding resolution is no big deal, why would the Republican leadership go to such great lengths to stop it? Yeah, it’s mainly a PR stunt. But perception becomes reality so often in politics, maybe PR matters.
That said, the big confrontation is going to come up when Congress has to take action on Bush’s request for more funding for Iraq and Afghanistan. If Congress is going to substantially affect Iraq policy before 2008, funding measures are probably the only they’re possibly going to be able to get past filibusters and presidential vetoes. We’ll see who gets tagged as an obstructionist then.