REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS ABANDONING BUSH/McCAIN/LIEBERMAN CALLS FOR IRAQ ESCALATION, "SURGE"

Earlier I wrote about how congressional Republicans are not exactly jumping up and down about the McCain/Lieberman calls for escalation of the Iraq war. Turns out, Bob Novak covered the story today for the Washington Post today. Lieberman and McCain went over to the Middle East with a gaggle of other senators so that they could appear to be speaking with authority when they declared that what we need is to send more troops into Baghdad. Lieberman fired the first shot last week with a badly-received and utterly pathetic editorial in the Post. (After swearing to Connecticut voters he had gone through a metamorphosis before the election and was now anti-war, it's understandable he would have been afraid to write the editorial calling for escalation of the war for any of his own state's newspapers.)

Novak, not exactly naive, starts his story with the absurd proposition that the McCain/Lieberman delegation was in Iraq to collect "evidence" that a surge is just what the doctor ordered. Novak well knows the complete lack of opportunity for McCain/Lieberman to collect "evidence" on anything other than the quality of the toilet paper in the Green Zone. But even a far right propagandist like Novak, who incorrectly refers to McCain as "the front-runner for the party's 2008 presidential nomination" (as though the fact that Rudy Giuliani isn't a Beltway hack makes his candidacy less than real), admits that barely a dozen Republican senators support the McCain/Lieberman escalation plan.

Last night I had mentioned how this thoroughly discredited idea is being opposed by usually reliable Republican rubber stampers like Susan Collins, Norm Coleman and Gordon Smith. Novak quotes Chuck Hagel: "It's Alice in Wonderland. I'm absolutely opposed to sending any more troops to Iraq. It is folly."

What to do about Iraq poses not only a national policy crisis but profound political problems for the Republican Party. Disenchantment with George W. Bush within the GOP runs deep. Republican leaders around the country, anticipating that the 2006 election disaster would prompt an orderly disengagement from Iraq, are shocked that the president now appears ready to add troops.

Republicans around the country are confused about why exactly Bush is ignoring the Iraq Study Group's recommendations. They trust James Baker's solid proposals far more than the re-packaged stay-the-course generalities being tossed blithely around by Bush, McCain, Cheney and Lieberman. And in 3 weeks... Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden will gavel open hearings on the surge/escalation proposals. Other members eager to oppose it include John Kerry, Russ Feingold, Chris Dodd, Barack Obama and Chuck Hagel. Why is this important? Christy over at Firedoglake nails it... perfectly.