COLUMNISTS You can measure the continuing power shift in Washington by looking at the costly package of veterans’ benefits sponsored by James Webb, the Virginia senator elected on an anti-Iraq war platform in 2006. President George W. Bush has promised to veto the measure. The scene is set for a showdown and Mr Bush is set to lose it. Over Memorial day, the editorial pages of US dailies backed Mr Webb’s bill as the least the country could do for soldiers who have sacrificed so much. A majority of Republican senators joined Mr Webb’s Democrats to render the bill veto-proof.
John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, has proposed a more modest alternative, but the defection of his party spells its doom. Now that Mr Webb’s measure has been dubbed a “21st-century GI bill”, it is above criticism.
