White House & allies don't want resolution vote

Hmm.

If the non-binding resolution opposing Bush's escalation of the Iraq war is as meaningless as we have been told (by Republicans and some Democrats, mind you), then why is it generating such a panic?

The Bush administration’s allies in the Senate began a major effort on Tuesday to prevent a potentially embarrassing rejection of the president’s plan to push 20,000 more troops into Iraq.

With the Senate expected to reach votes on possible resolutions sometime next week, the signs of the new campaign seeped out after a weekly closed-door lunch in which Republican senators engaged in what participants described as a heated debate over how to approach the issue.

The new effort by President Bush’s allies, including Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, is aimed at blocking two nonbinding resolutions directly critical of the White House that had appeared to be gaining broad support among Democrats and even some Republicans.

The reason the White House and its Senate allies dread this vote is obvious. It will force lawmakers to go on the record as supporting escalation or opposing it. It turns the tables on the GOP tactic of forcing people to declare themselves for or against "the war on terror."

The question is no longer "do you want America to win, or not?" The majority of Americans no longer believe this war is winnable, and cannot be convinced otherwise. The resolution changes the question to, "do you want to continue fighting an unwinnable war?" Neither the White House nor its allies in congress want to have to explain why an unwinnable war is worth the life of even one more American troop.