Republicans Want Answers, Too

President Bush doesn't much like answering tough questions.

Faced with a profound souring of public opinion, Bush has held only one full-scale press conference since June. His press secretary won't give straight answers to even the simplest questions anymore. And Bush's aides continue to keep skeptics out of the Oval Office and away from his public events.

The president has refused to answer any questions about the recent indictment of a top White House aide. And most recently, his response to questions about his administration's misleading statements before the war with Iraq has been as unenlightening as it has been vitriolic.

Only Congress can legally demand answers from the President -- but with both Houses controlled by docile Republicans, that hasn't been a problem.

Until now.

Signs are that members of Bush's own party, at least in the Senate, are increasingly sick of the mushroom treatment -- particularly when it comes to the future of American involvement in Iraq.

What's the Strategy?

Carl Hulse writes in the New York Times: "In a sign of increasing unease among Congressional Republicans over the war in Iraq, the Senate is to consider on Tuesday a Republican proposal that calls for Iraqi forces to take the lead next year in securing the nation and for the Bush administration to lay out its strategy for ending the war. . . .

"The proposal on the Iraq war, from Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, and Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, would require the administration to provide extensive new quarterly reports to Congress on subjects like progress in bringing in other countries to help stabilize Iraq. The other appeals related to Iraq are nonbinding and express the position of the Senate.

"The plan stops short of a competing Democratic proposal that moves toward establishing dates for a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq. But it is built upon the Democratic approach and makes it clear that senators of both parties are increasingly eager for Iraqis to take control of their country in coming months and open the door to removing American troops."

Chipping Away at Presidential Power

Jonathan Weisman writes in The Washington Post: "A bipartisan group of senators reached a compromise yesterday that would dramatically alter U.S. policy for treating captured terrorist suspects by granting them a final recourse to the federal courts but stripping them of some key legal rights."

That measure would likely be linked with the effort by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to ban torture and abuse of terrorism suspects being held in U.S. facilities, Weisman writes.

"Such broad legislation would be Congress's first attempt to assert some control over the detention of suspected terrorists, which the Bush administration has closely guarded as its sole prerogative. . . .