Democrats Revise Agenda To Deal With War in Iraq

Early Friday afternoon, Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.), a House Armed Services Committee member, groused that an Iraq hearing planned for Jan. 19 was at least a week too late. "We on the Armed Services [Committee] feel strongly that we need to begin the hearing process immediately," he said.

By late afternoon, the hearing was rescheduled for this week.

Some Democratic strategists urged party members to stick to their original plan, passing kitchen-table legislation every day, such as the minimum-wage increase and the stem cell bill, while Bush struggles with the war. Celinda Lake, a Democratic strategist and pollster, called it "the perfect juxtaposition."

"People are not looking to their individual members of Congress to solve the Iraq war," she said. "For the House to be focused on it now would look like partisan bickering rather than getting on with the people's business."

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) agreed that the Democrats have the winning hand. Bush may be grabbing the spotlight by shaking up his war advisers, bolstering troop strength in Baghdad and pushing more money into Iraq reconstruction, but the news reports are doing him no good, he said.

"I know where support for more troops is, and I know where support is for the minimum-wage increase," said Emanuel, the fourth-ranking House Democrat. "I'd rather be doing what we're doing."

By the weekend, however, Emanuel had acknowledged the Democrats' strategic shift. He still was not worried that Bush might be scoring political points, but he said the Democrats have to respond.

"This is not a surge; it's an escalation, and we want to make sure the definition is correct," he said. "When the American people voted for change in November, this is not what they had in mind."