Bipartisan GI bill excludes GOP leadership

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By Sean Lengell THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Democratic Sen. Jim Webb outflanked top Republicans by courting veterans groups to create a "21st Century GI Bill," a legislative gambit that has again put GOP lawmakers at odds with President Bush and the party's presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain.

Most major veterans groups, who generally have been supportive of the Bush administration, are solidly behind the measure to expand college aid for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and they want Mr. Bush to reconsider his promised veto.

"This was clearly a cooperative operation, bipartisan and with involvement with the veterans service organizations," said Steve Robertson, legislative affairs director with the American Legion. "That's why I think everyone's pretty much in sync with it ... it was a group effort."

Veterans groups say that wasn't the case with a competing and less-costly Republican proposal sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Richard M. Burr of North Carolina and Mr. McCain of Arizona.

"We didn't have that much input into [the Republican version] - there was no dialogue to my knowledge other than 'this is it,'" Mr. Robertson said.

Congressional Democrats are trying to parlay the support into a legislative victory on a supplemental spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - onto which the GI measure has been attached - and make it an election issue as well.

Likely Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama attacked Mr. McCain for not supporting it. Mr. McCain, a Vietnam war hero, shot back that his affection for veterans is surpassed by no one.

Democrats have repeatedly failed at tacking troop withdrawal deadlines to war spending bills. But when they linked their GI bill to the most-recent war spending measures, the packages easily passed the House and Senate last month. Because the Senate made changes to the initial House measure, the House must again vote on the bill, which could come as soon as this week.

Capitol Hill Republicans also have split with Mr. Bush in recent weeks on other matters, such as supporting a massive farm measure that gives subsidies to farmers and money for nutrition programs such as food stamps, and voting to stop the government from filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.