Although no one likes an extended trip through the medina of Congressional lore and practice more than I do, the hard fact is that figuring what to best do with a bill always starts with the numbers.

The Senate numbers on Iraq appear to be these: around 25 favoring a withdrawal timetable, a tad below 60 favoring Warner-Levin, a tad over - Novak says 70 - favoring Gregg.

So far as I know, we have no suggestion of the likely count for defunding, either of the surge or the war as a whole; I shouldn't be surprised if that came out as less than for the timetable.

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The relationship between the House majority leadership and the chairmen of House committees structurally tends toward conflict: gratuitously delimiting turf invites turf wars. And the lack of a line of reporting - that, to a fair extent, the chairmen and the leadership are coordinate jurisdictions - invites serial scraps over who's boss on a particular matter.

Ultimate power rests with the leadership, because the leadership controls Rules, and Rules has the jurisidiction to do more or less what it likes.

But, especially after 12 years in the wilderness, and the consequent atmosphere of high-fiving and ballyhoo that accompanied their return to power, chairmen were bound to feel their oats in the early days. (Especially since, I suspect, several of them rather expected that the Grim Reaper would intervene to rob them of their return to glory!)

After a day spent away from the infernal machine, I return to find that Pelosi has decided to go on offense with her plan to establish a House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

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Jonathan linked an LA Times piece on the failure of cloture yesterday on the bipartisan substitute (SA 3) to the ethics bill S 1.

Obviously one takes anything one reads in any medium with a good sackful of salt.

But the Times piece explains the position like this:

Reid and Gregg were close to an agreement on bringing the line-item veto proposal to the floor this spring, but Reid said Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), a staunch opponent of ceding any legislative control over the purse to the president, had objected.

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