What’s going to happen to the Murtha plan?

When Condoleezza Rice told America on Sunday that the president would defy legislation restricting his options in continuing the war in Iraq, she may have sparked more questions than answers.

You may have asked yourself, "What business is it of the Secretary of State to issue a statement like that?" And that'd be a good question. You wouldn't be the first to wonder whether grafting the former National Security Adviser onto the Department of State had left us without a functioning diplomatic capacity.

Maybe you asked yourself on what grounds the president would feel entitled to defy an Act of Congress. We discussed that the other day.

Or maybe you asked yourself, "How does Rice know for sure that the president is going to do that?" The answer to that one is, because he's already done it.

From all indications, the plan proposed by Rep. Jack Murtha, the chairman of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, would include (among other things) restrictions on the use of DoD funds for the deployment of troops who haven't been afforded adequate time for resetting and retraining at home. Conservative Democrats, led by the so-called Blue Dogs, are reportedly nervous about Murtha's plan, and may be floating a less-confrontational approach that merely requires the president to affirmatively certify when he orders such a deployment.

But in the face of Rice's declaration, does either plan really stand a chance?

Not by themselves, if Bush's record can inform the matter.

Today, I have signed into law H.R. 1588, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004. The Act authorizes funding to defend the United States and its interests abroad and provides much- needed flexibility to manage effectively the personnel and taxpayer resources devoted to the national defense.

Section 541(a) of the Act amends section 991 of title 10 of the United States Code to purport to place limits on the number of days on which a member of the Armed Forces may be deployed, unless the Secretary of Defense or a senior civilian or military officer to whom the Secretary has delegated authority under section 541(a) approves the continued deployment. Section 1023 purports to place restrictions on use of the U.S. Armed Forces in certain operations. The executive branch shall construe the restrictions on deployment and use of the Armed Forces in sections 541(a) and 1023 as advisory in nature, so that the provisions are consistent with the President's constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and to supervise the unitary executive branch.

What you are looking at is George W. Bush's signing statement nullifying language in a duly-passed and signed Act of Congress, that appeared to require something considerably less embarrassing to the "administration" than what conservative House Democrats demand as an alternative to Murtha's outright prohibitions. As you can see, The Decider considers it to be within his "inherent powers" to ignore even this minimal inconvenience when he violates the readiness standards of our Armed Forces.

In other words, we've actually been down this road before -- and with almost-unanimous Republican support (minus Ron Paul) -- but to no avail.

Do the Blue Dogs, whose criticism of the Murtha plan is being led by Reps. Jim Matheson of Utah and Jim Cooper of Tennessee, really think they're onto something here? Given that Bush ignored even this kid glove treatment, do we really think the Blue Dogs think they're gonna put one past the president by "forcing" him to approve the deployments personally? Neither plan stands a chance at being accepted by the "administration," but at least Murtha's had the virtue of actually trying to do something about the president's continued violation of military readiness policy, even if some would consider it much less than necessary. For the president to defy Murtha's funding prohibitions sets up a direct constitutional conflict. For the president to defy the Blue Dog plan saves him some paperwork.

But maybe that's just what the Blue Dogs want. Because the president's rejection of the Murtha plan puts them right where they're most afraid to be: actually confronting the president on Iraq.

The House Democratic Caucus meets tonight to see if the Members can hash out a strategy that they can pursue with sufficient unity. The question the media will be covering, no doubt, is which plan, if any, emerges from that meeting with the leadership's blessing. The real story -- that all plans (even those approved by Republicans, like that in the 2004 bill) will suffer the same fate at the hands of a president who believes himself above constraint by Congress and the courts alike -- will likely get no coverage at all.