The Senate's lame doves; why they failed to stop the war.

• Author: Bennet, James
• Position: Persian Gulf War

James Bennet is an editor of the Washington Monthly. Research assistance was provided by Elliott Beard and Sean O'Sullivan.

Why they failed to stop the war

Those who spent a large part of the days leading up to January 16 in arguments over whether the U.S. should go to war with Iraq sooner, later, or not at all-arguments that flared up like grease fires in the middle of previously pleasant conversations around the dinner table, on the phone, in bars-may be surprised to learn of the one forum that managed to stay above the fray: the United States Senate. Somehow, both on the Senate floor and off it, the members of the greatest deliberative body in the world pretty much avoided getting dragged into messy debates with each other about the efficacy of sanctions, the validity of the Munich analogy, the staying power of the coalition.

This is not to say that senators didn't dig deep into their own souls, agonizing over what Robert Byrd, for one, called the most important vote of his 39-year congressional career. In fact, it's when you assume that most senators did agonize, did call upon their years of experience and their gut instincts in reaching their decisions, that their failure to try to guide others to the mountaintop seems most odd. When you further consider what was at stake-as Dale Bumpers declared, "The need for thoughtful, sensible debate has never, never been greater"-this failure begins to seem not merely odd, but outrageous.

From Thursday, January 10, through Saturday the 12th, Congress met to consider whether to grant George Bush the authority to take the country to war once the UN Security Council's deadline expired. Those days are widely regarded as having restored much of the faded luster of both houses. David Broder summed up that view, writing, "One thing on which everyone could agree . . . was that Congress-that familiar whipping boy-had dealt with the issue of authorizing the use of force in a manner befitting the gravity of the subject. The weekend debate was civil and somber, always serious and often eloquent." Certainly, in the Senate, it was somber, serious, and eloquent. And no doubt it was civil. But by any reasonable standard, it was not debate.

The curious antidebate tenor of the proceedings was established on day one. There was a sharp, promising exchange between Senators Paul Sarbanes and Arlen Specter over whether Secretaries Dick Cheney and James Baker had declared that sanctions had failed. Joe Biden took the floor to make his prepared statement, but Tom Harkin of Iowa, evidently excited by his colleagues' argument, asked Biden for 30 seconds to raise a couple of related points. Here's how the ensuing colloquy appears in the Congressional Record. Harkin began enthusiastically:

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, again, I was hoping we might get into these kinds of colloquies on the floor. I know senators want to give their speeches and express their views on this issue, but I hope...