I go away for a coupla days...

If I'm understanding things aright (caveat maxime lector!), next week will see HR 1 (9/11 bill) on the Senate floor. And, according to the Politico piece from yesterday, the Dems are not planning to move on Iraq unless the GOP move first. But the Dems have the Biden-Levin Resolution amending or replacing the IWR (H J Res 114 (107th) ready in case.

The Dems' preference, it seems, is to wait until the Iraq supplemental bill comes round.

There's more...

Let's take one element of the puzzle, and play around with it.

Suppose the Iraq supplemental bill passes the House with the Murtha Proviso attached.

(Of course, right we only know what the proviso will say in the most general terms. That doesn't matter for present purposes.)

The bill comes over to the Senate, and gets referred to the corresponding committee to Murtha's.

Now, with Byrd as chairman of Apps, there's no way, surely, that the Proviso won't get the nod.

So - Byrd reports out the bill with a substitute - an amendment which replaces everything after the enacting clause - which includes the text of the Proviso.

There's more...