The debate in Congress has changed:

Even as the Iraq war promises to be a defining issue of the fall presidential campaign, the debate on Capitol Hill has lost steam. Most congressional Democrats have been walking a rhetorical tightrope, praising the reduction in violence while contending it hasn’t improved Iraq’s long-term outlook.
Unlike a year ago, they have shown little interest in trying to force Bush to rapidly withdraw troops — or at least make him veto their timeline for doing so. After Bush requested $70 billion in war funding earlier this month, Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, who heads the defense appropriations subcommittee, was virtually alone among Democratic leaders in vowing to push for troop withdrawal language in spending bills. During a recent planning meeting, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland urged fellow Democrats not to link withdrawal with spending bills.
Democrats actually have lost ground since the summer, as wavering moderate Republicans have embraced the troop strategy. Rep. Wayne Gilchrist of Maryland, a Republican who voted to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, was defeated in last week’s primary by a supporter of the current policy.
“Petraeus was right,” Coleman said of Gen. David Petraeus, the architect of the new military strategy. “I had concerns, and he proved me wrong. The surge has really changed the dynamic.”
The recent news that Petraeus and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are leaning toward a brief pause in planned withdrawals of U.S. combat brigades drew protests from Democrats, but they say there isn’t much they can do.
“We don’t have a two-thirds majority to override the president’s veto,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Feb. 10 on CNN. “We don’t have 60 votes in the Senate to allow our (troop withdrawal) legislation to go forward.”
[…]
During the spring and summer, when car bombs were a near-daily occurrence in Baghdad and U.S. troop deaths spiked, hardly a day went by when Democrats in Congress didn’t try to focus attention on Iraq through hearings, news conferences and floor debates.
Those occasions are now few and far between. When Gates appeared before the House Armed Services Committee on Feb. 6 to discuss war funding, Skelton didn’t mention Iraq until the 12th paragraph of his opening statement, and he didn’t refer to conditions on the ground.
Even the most ardent Iraq war opponents in Congress, such as Democratic Reps Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey, both of California, emphasized the issue of permanent U.S. bases in Iraq, not troop withdrawals, in a recent letter to Pelosi about Iraq. They continue to support legislation to block funding for the war, but they say they know it isn’t going anywhere.

Pelosi won’t admit it but she knows it.