Editorial: The president as monarch

Friday, March 30, 2007 | 7:14 a.m.

If President Bush follows through on his promise to veto legislation on war spending that is tied to a requirement to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq by September 2008 at the latest, he will be defying the will of the American people.

While corruption and arrogance among Republican lawmakers played a role, most analysts say November's election swung control of Congress to the Democrats largely on the strength of voters' growing opposition to the Iraq war.

Congress then had a responsibility to send the president a strong message that his conduct of the Iraq war has been tragic and a new course must be undertaken.

The Senate sent that message Thursday, when it voted 51-47 to approve an additional $123 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - on the condition that Bush begin withdrawing troops from Iraq this year.

The bill also contained a nonbinding goal, that U.S. combat operations in Iraq be ended by March 31, 2008. Among those voting in approval was Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican and former U.S. Army infantry sergeant who was wounded during his 1968 tour of duty in Vietnam.

"We have fulfilled our constitutional responsibilities," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said after the vote.

The House, voting 218-212, passed slightly stronger legislation March 23. Its bill approving the war spending set Sept. 1, 2008, as the date for most troops to be out of Iraq - no "nonbinding" about it.

It also set benchmarks for Iraq , with an even earlier U.S. troop withdrawal as the consequence if Iraq could not show it was meeting them. Among those voting in approval was Wayne Gilchrest, a Maryland Republican and former Marine sergeant who was also wounded in Vietnam.

"The American people, their voices, have been heard," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told The New York Times after the vote.

Bush, who acknowledged that his administration and the Republican Party had taken a "thumping" on Election Day, should have been among those listening. But in spite of the voters' voices, and in spite of the votes in Congress during the past week, he is escalating the war that he drummed up using false intelligence and then waged without heeding competent advice.

We believe Congress was correct to respond to the country's opposition to the war. And we believe Bush's reaction - crowing about how the votes were not veto-proof - is arrogant and irresponsible to the extreme.