Cloture on HR 2 (the minimum wage bill) passed yesterday, so Senate decks are cleared for battle next week on the various texts of nonbinding Iraq resolutions.

According to the papers this morning (the Post,for instance), Biden (S Con Res 2) has been benched in favor of Warner (S Con Res 4).

But Warner with a twist:

The revised resolution would express the Senate's opposition to the troop increase but would vow to protect funding for the troops. The resolution does not include the Democratic language saying the Bush plan is against the national interest, but it also drops an earlier provision by Warner suggesting Senate support for some additional troops.

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I'm not seeing much round the lefty sphere.

I was, I'm surprised to find, succinct on the point yesterday:

Problem is: these bills are legislative dead meat. The only way of getting to first base in stopping the war is to tailor an amendment to the upcoming Iraq supplemental and dare Bush not to sign it.

Bush will then either trigger a constitutional crisis - or, more likely, just get the moolah from elsewhere in the DOD apps behemoth.

Now, I've no rooted objection to pols exploiting the ill-informedness of the electorate.

Just so long as the better-informed amongst us don't mistake fantasy for fact.

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Last time I looked (which would be last Friday), the pre-debate on the Biden/Warner/Who Knows? anti-surge res was promising an inoffensive lowest common denominator.

Now, according to Novak, there may be no res of any kind passed.

There are, it seems, three grades of possible res: Biden (S Con Res 2), Warner (S Con Res 4) and McCain.

Biden and Warner both disapprove the surge, but Warner is politer about it and, and contemplates Congress approving of a smaller surge.

McCain (no text yet) would approve the surge but subject to benchmarks.

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It looks like we're in for a whole barrel full of Senate fudge when the Biden anti-surge (sense of Congress) S Con Res 2 hits the floor.

According to the Timestoday, we can look for amendments from

• Warner-Nelson - on which, Coleman:
  

  The Warner resolution, I think, offers an opportunity for a lot of us to express a concern about an aspect of the policy without taking a shot at the president.
  

  
  
• McCain -
  

  said he would propose giving the Iraqis a series of benchmarks to demonstrate progress.

  
  
• Cornyn -
  

  A draft proposal from...Cornyn...declares that "the United States military leadership in Iraq should be given a reasonable chance to execute the new plan for Iraq."

Plus who knows who else.

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There are, of course, as many views on Iraq as MCs. Probably more.

But what an MC says he wants to happen, what he'd like to happen (if ifs and ands were pots and pans), what he wants to happen (assuming they aren't) and what he's prepared to vote for bear no necessary relationship one to another.

Which is why a non-binding res is so useful. (It's S Con Res 2, it's sponsored by Biden and cosponsored by Hagel, Levin and Snowe - and the text isn't yet on THOMAS.) It enables MCs to get worked up and on their high horses without actually affecting (or effecting) anything much. It's the very definition of displacement activity.

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