Bipartisan Hostility Looms for Bush

Tonight the hostility President Bush faces when he addresses the nation on the State of the Union will be bipartisan and representative of voters across the country. A new Democratic majority in Congress is hostile to his New Way Forward in Iraq. Polls show he is facing an increasingly hostile public, with majorities saying they oppose his war strategy and no longer trust his decisions or willingness to work with the Congress. But it is the coming death by a thousand Republican cuts that will hurt the most.

Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) joined other Republicans and a Democrat yesterday in proposing a resolution opposing more troops in Iraq. It differs from the Democratic version because it doesn't contain the word "escalation," but other than that it is pretty much the same. If Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is worth his salt as majority leader he will talk the authors of the first resolution into merging it and accepting the Warner language because the Democratic majority would be better served by more Republican votes, and fewer resolutions.

Over in the House, Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) is now calling for benchmarks for the Iraqis to meet. Like Warner, Boehner is trying to soften the blow, or be less direct. But it all means the same thing.

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