GOP adopts, passes Democratic initiative-- after defanging it.

I haven't seen anything on the blogs about this, but it's an excellent and revealing story that I heard mentioned yesterday on, I think, the Ed Schultz show.

The GOP-controlled chamber will vote Tuesday on a pair of proposals -- one Republican and one Democratic -- that tell President Bush what the Senate believes the U.S. diplomatic and military policy on Iraq should be.

Whichever proposal prevails will be added to a defense bill the Senate is hoping to complete work on as early as Tuesday. (. . .)

Nearly identical, the two Iraq policy proposals call for -- but do not require -- the Bush administration to "explain to Congress and the American people its strategy for the successful completion of the mission in Iraq" and to provide reports on U.S. foreign policy and military operations in Iraq every three months until all U.S. combat brigades have been withdrawn.

The major difference between the two versions is that the Democratic proposal calls for the president to outline a "campaign plan with estimated dates for the phased redeployment" of U.S. troops.

Republicans largely adopted the Democratic proposal as their own, but omitted that one paragraph calling for the president to offer a plan for a phased withdrawal of the roughly 160,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq. The administration has refused to set a timetable for withdrawal, saying insurgents simply would wait to strike until after U.S. forces departed.

In short, the GOP is breaking ranks with the White House on Iraq. But not to the point where they'll risk besmirching the party name. Talk about moral bankruptcy. They'd rather let more troops die than do the right thing.