Many noticed the change in congressional Democrats' tune from simply protesting the "surge" policy to doing what they said all last year they would NEVER do - setting a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Turns out the antiwar left has been applying nonstop pressure on both the leadership and individual members to do just that. Michael Luo of The New York Times reports:

Every morning, representatives from a cluster of antiwar groups gather for a conference call with Democratic leadership staff members in the House and the Senate.

Shortly after, in a cramped meeting room here, they convene for a call with organizers across the country. They hash out plans for rallies. They sketch out talking points for "rapid response" news conferences. They discuss polls they have conducted in several dozen crucial Congressional districts and states across the country.

Over the last four months, the Iraq deliberations in Congress have lurched from a purely symbolic resolution rebuking the president's strategy to timetables for the withdrawal of American troops. Behind the scenes, an elaborate political operation, organized by a coalition of antiwar groups and fine-tuned to wrestle members of Congress into place one by one, has helped nudge the debate forward.

But there are tensions in the relationship between the groups, which banded together earlier this year under the umbrella of Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, and the Democratic leadership. The fissures could be magnified in coming weeks as the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, struggle to cobble together a strategy after President Bush's veto of the $124 billion Iraq spending bill that tied the money to a timetable for withdrawal.

On Thursday, leaders of the liberal group MoveOn.org, including Tom Matzzie, the group's Washington director who also serves as the campaign manager for the coalition, sent a harshly worded warning to the Democratic leadership.

"In the past few days, we have seen what appear to be trial balloons signaling a significant weakening of the Democratic position," the letter read. "On this, we want to be perfectly clear: if Democrats appear to capitulate to Bush -- passing a bill without measures to end the war -- the unity Democrats have enjoyed and Democratic leadership has so expertly built, will immediately disappear."

Read the whole story at the link above. The Democratic leadership may have made a fatal error by caving into these fringe groups' demands. Had they resisted from the start, they might have been able to persevere in crafting a funding policy acceptable to both the Administration and the Congress. Now, any backtracking will be met by full-out, scorched-earth civil war from the antiwar left.