Georgia Democrat likes what he hears

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON - President Bush and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi both need Jim Marshall.

He’s a House Democrat who represents the kind of Republican-leaning district in the South — in Macon, Ga., and its environs — that Pelosi must keep in order to hold onto her majority in the House.

And Bush needs the support of Marshall and Democrats like him to give his Iraq policy a chance of success.

Marshall left Princeton University in 1968 to join the Army and serve in Vietnam. Now a member of the Armed Services Committee, he has toured Iraq 10 times.

After watching President Bush’s speech Wednesday night in his office on Capitol Hill, Marshall told me, “The most significant thing is that this is an Iraqi plan. If you think about it, what has the government of Iraq tried to do or suggested doing anything as significant as this, with Iraqis attempting to take the lead? This is a big deal.”

“There’s going to have to be one heck of a great speech by Maliki to the Iraqis — because this is Maliki’s plan,” he said, referring to the prime minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki. “And that’s wonderful, frankly, that this is an Iraq plan to secure Iraq.”

But he said, “This is a plausible thing to try.”

Not a last stand
Marshall did not see the speech in the apocalyptic terms that some pundits did: “People need to be thinking about this not as some sort of last stand or next-to-the-last stand, but as a reasonable thing for America to do in order to support the Iraqis.”

NBC VIDEO Obama: Iraq plan 'wrong-headed' Jan. 11: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. discusses his reaction to President Bush's new strategy. Today show

Marshall’s reaction was sharply at odds with that of many Democrats such as Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, who said, “I believe we need to bring our troops home, not send more troops to war."

Will Bush’s address shore up support for the president’s policy in Marshall’s district in Georgia? “I don’t think the speech itself will change anything. The effect on the ground, the perceived success or failure — it is perception here that rules — that is what’s going to determine whether people think this was the right move or the wrong move, at this point,” he said.

He noted, “The president’s credibility is so low with those he has to persuade that words alone won’t push it.”

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