WHY TOM DASCHLE IS SO SCARED:

Liberals Object to Bush Policy on Iraq (DAVID FIRESTONE, September 28, 2002, NY Times)

Liberal Democrats, led by Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, voiced reservations today about giving President Bush a free hand to attack Iraq before a new, tougher set of United Nations inspections is put into effect. [...]

Mr. Kennedy's position, in which he is joined by colleagues like Mr. Levin, Dianne Feinstein of California and Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, complicates the task of Mr. Daschle. He and other Democratic leaders had hoped to move the resolution quickly through the Senate to focus on his party's core message highlighting economic distress before the November midterm elections. But now Mr. Daschle's office expects more than 50 speeches on the resolution after it is formally introduced early next week, meaning that a vote may not take place until late in the week of Oct. 7. Many of those speeches will probably come from dissenting Democrats, and several of the most vocal opponents may introduce amendments to change or narrow the wording that the White House wants in the resolution. [...]

"Senator Kennedy offered the most thorough and cohesive argument for complacency so far," said Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the Republican whip. "The U.S. seeks broad support in the war on terror, but subcontracting our national security to the United Nations, as Senator Kennedy recommends, would be a foolish blunder."

Gephardt's has problems with his own (Robert Novak, September 28, 2002, Townhall.com)

Anti-war Democrats in the House are so angry with Rep. Richard Gephardt's support of an Iraq war resolution that they privately are saying that he should quit now as House Minority Leader and devote himself to his presidential ambitions.

Opponents of the resolution constitute no more than 45 of the 209 House Democrats, and they have not publicly voiced their desire for Gephardt's resignation. He is not exerting party discipline on the issue.

The carefully staged explosion by Tom Daschle on the Senate floor this week and Dick Gephardt's NY Times op-ed, both bewailing the rise of Republican partisanship on the war issue, appear to have been something akin to the magician's wand, the showy distraction that diverts your attention while the trick goes on elsewhere. It seems unlikely that they'll be able to restrain their own caucuses for long and that, over the course of the next week or two, the Democrats will, against the wishes of their leaders, wear a public face of opposition to any further action in the war on terror. They want to declare victory over the Taliban and come home.
Posted by Orrin Judd at September 28, 2002 10:43 AM