Libby Sentence Nullified; Candidates Release Fund-raising Numbers

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• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  And to the analysis of Shields and Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields and "New York Times" columnist David Brooks.

  Gentlemen, thank you for being with us, as always, every Friday.

  David, Iraq, another prominent Republican senator walking away from the president this week, Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico, on the heels of Richard Lugar, George Voinovich, and others, what is the effect of this?

• DAVID BROOKS:

  Most of them old bulls, pre-Bush, pre-Gingrich Republicans, an older sort of Republican.

  What surprises me is not that they believe it. I think most Republicans believe that the war is lost. What is surprising me is that they are saying it. And, so, you are seeing a leakage of people saying it. And, to me, there are two issues here.

  The first is, do they agree on a common alternative? They all say they want something else, do but do they actually know what that something else is? Some people want the Iraq Study Group. Some people, like, don't want the Iraq Study Group. And there are a million alternatives out there.

  And then the final thing that I think is going to happen is, the White House is seeing this. And they know that, come September, Domenici, Voinovich, Lugar, there is just going to be a stampede of this. So, they have to head it off at the pass.

  So, I think, before we get to that point in September where you get a whole bunch of senators, the White House will have some new Iraq strategy, which will be — whatever it will call for, it will be fewer casualties.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  So Mark, this is a turning point. Is that — I mean, I don't want to…

• MARK SHIELDS:

  I think it is a turning point.

  But David makes a very good point. And that is, they are all disagreeing with the president, but they aren't moving to a single position. And they aren't moving to the Democratic position. All I can think of is, it is a little bit like, we are against segregation, but we're not going to endorse the civil rights bill.

  I mean, they are kind of moving to some sort of a halfway house. The Salazar amendment, Senator Salazar of Colorado, a Democrat, is co-sponsored by Lamar Alexander, a Republican of Tennessee, has become — and not that the Senate Democratic leadership is thrilled about it, but it has become, I think, a viable alternative. And that…

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Tell us what that will do.

• MARK SHIELDS:

  Well, what it does is, it embodies, legislatively, the Iraq Study Group's recommendations.

  And it mystifies almost all the Democrats and most Republicans why, last December, George Bush did not embrace the Iraq Study Group, because, at that point, it would have given co-ownership — because the Democrats did — co-ownership of the Iraq war to both parties.

  Instead, he rejected it, said some nice words, and then totally rejected it, keeping it as a Republican problem. Thus, you get Senator Domenici, who is up for reelection in 2008, and is an institution in New Mexico, but now facing some problems. He's being criticized in ads on his own Iraq position in New Mexico.

  I thought the way he handled it was quite adroit. He attributed his change of position to the imprecation and importuning of a father of a New Mexico soldier who had been killed. And, instead of saying, we owe it to those who have died to continue to fight, he basically, the father — he quoted the father as saying, for the sake of those who are living, my son can't be saved, but maybe they can be. Can you please do something more to try and bring them home?

  And I think David is right, that we're going to see that. And that's — we're coming up next two weeks in the Senate with a defense authorization bill, and we will see a series of amendments. And we will find out just how far these people who are against the war are willing to move.