From an e-mail newsletter:

Iraq Resolution: Republicans won a round on the Iraq War resolution Tuesday by outmaneuvering the Democratic leadership on the Senate floor. This was by no means an unqualified victory, but it reduced harm to Republicans and wasted serious legislative time that Senate Democrats would like to use for other purposes.
The lesson for those unschooled in Washington's ways is that the success or failure of a Senate resolution is often less important than the fact of forcing one's opponents to cast votes they don't like.

1. Majority Democrats approached this resolution as an opportunity to make Republicans take a vote they didn't want to take -- a tactic used numerous times by Republicans when they were in the majority. Just as when the Republicans did it, the vote on the calendar had less to do with the subject at hand (in this case the Iraq troop surge) than it did with who would gain political advantage from it. This is even more obvious here, considering that the resolution at hand is non-binding, and that Democrats do not want to take a substantive vote on cutting off funding for the war effort because the issue divides them.

2. The Democrats' tactic was sound and in some sense it worked. They tried to vote on the Iraq strategy, and Republicans stopped them. Given the war's unpopularity, that is something of a Democratic victory. Republicans, however, believe they would have been worse off had they been divided in a simple vote for or against President Bush's surge. That would have been embarrassing to the entire Republican Party, as committed as it is now to success in Iraq. Republicans prefer to avoid such a vote altogether.

3. On Monday, without enough Republican help, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) could muster only 49 of the 60 votes needed to proceed to a debate on the issue under his preferred parliamentary construction. What Reid wanted was to schedule first a vote on Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) pro-surge resolution, then a vote on the anti-surge resolution of Senators John Warner (R-Va.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.). This kept the issue simple, symbolic, meaningless and damaging for all Republicans. Either vote for Bush's "escalation," or vote against it. In order to achieve this structure, Reid "filled the amendment tree" for the resolution. This is the technical term for proposing several meaningless amendments (sometimes this includes amendments adding or removing commas from a bill) so that there is no room for substantive amendments to be offered.

4. Republicans, however, decided to complicate matters. After sticking together on Monday to avoid an Iraq debate on Reid's terms, they agreed to take their chances on the same Warner resolution, but demanded an additional vote on an amendment by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) stating opposition to a cutoff of funding or to any congressional action that would harm troop morale in Iraq.

5. As little as Republicans wanted to vote on the Warner resolution, Democrats were even more scared of voting on Gregg's amendment -- it would have defeated the Democrats' entire purpose for voting on Iraq. Moreover, Warner's resolution would not get the 60 votes needed to pass, and Gregg's would have won. This would embarrass and divide the Democratic majority. More proof: When Gregg asked Reid on the floor whether Reid would vote for a resolution against cutting funding, Reid stammered, said he could not answer, and changed the subject.

6. Democrats preferred no vote to a vote that included Gregg's resolution, and thus they were forced to give up altogether on the idea of a resolution. After losing a round, their next move is to consider a resolution in the House in hopes of increasing pressure for the Senate to act later.

As with the famous "immediate withdrawal" legislation, Democrats will dive out the windows if anything comes to a vote that actually has to put their money where their mouths are. I'd love to see a real funding cutoff vote actually hit the floor instead of some meaningless non-binding load of gas. Don't hold your breath.