In London, war debate roars; Washington's whispers

IT'S about 1:13 p.m. in Washington when the member from Orkney and Shetland concludes his remarks. The House - not yet into its 5-cent coin debate - is considering whether or not to encourage people to celebrate the 140th anniversary of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R) notes that he recently had the opportunity to appear in the Civil War movie "Gods and Generals" and understands "the suffering" that war entails: "Now our nation stands on the brink of another war that will bring suffering as all wars do, but will have noble ends: the destruction of evil." He cites a line from the film: "War is a scourge, but so is slavery." As he speaks, phone lines all over Capitol Hill are down because of the volume of calls from peace protesters, who targeted the Congress on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, lawmakers were carrying on an unusual filibuster on a presidential judicial nominee. Both parties blamed the other for the impasse since Feb. 5 on the nomination of Miguel Estrada to US appellate bench.

For Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, filling out those long stretches of filibuster (a term Democrats prefer not to use) to a near-empty chamber required frequent pauses to study a spiral notebook with the lowdown on Mr. Estrada. It includes, for example, the observation that while Estrada did edit the Harvard Law Review, he was not the main editor: There were, in fact, 70 law students who also edited the review at the same time, said Mr. Leahy, looking up for emphasis. Moreover, a nominee who had actually supervised all those law students never got a hearing when Republicans controlled the committee. The "debate" goes on past midnight.

So, why do American lawmakers seem to be fiddling while Brits fume?

Analysts point to several explanations. One is that Sept. 11 profoundly shifted the terms of foreign-policy debate in the United States. "Before 9/11, a vote against going to war might have courted unpopularity, but it didn't carry with it a suggestion of lack of patriotism or concern about the national security of America," says Mr. Baker of Rutgers.

The last time Congress debated the nation's policy on the use of force in Iraq Oct. was 11, 2002, just before Bush made his case to the United Nations - and few lawmakers are eager to take it up again.

Democrats worry that a new debate and vote on the war would give President Bush and Republicans cover in the next election if the war goes badly. Instead, Democrats are delivering a spate of nuanced position papers on the war

"You won't see a debate officially on the floor of the Senate or House, but unofficially and publicly in speeches, there is quite a bit of debate about it," says Sen. Ben Nelson (D) of Nebraska, just back from trip to South Korea with Secretary of State Colin Powell. He credits such behind-the-scenes pressure with convincing the Bush administration that it needed more international support before going to war.

The trouble is, he adds, these behind-the-scenes discussions don't "serve the American people" as well as a debate on the floor of the Senate.

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