We get this exchange:

BLITZER: Some Democrats are saying, use the power of the purse. Others are suggesting there should be a cap at about 100,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Where do you stand on these various ideas?

REID: I stand in looking at every one of them. I think we have to give everyone an opportunity to express their opinions, and we're doing that.

We're going to have, take up the 9/11 recommendations, that is, whether they should be implemented.

[...]

And during that process, people will have opportunities to again focus on this war.

[...]

BLITZER: So, let me just be clear. You are leaving open the possibility that you will use this funding option, the power of the purse, as it's called, in order to try to stop this war?

REID: First of all, everyone within the sound of my voice should understand that every Democratic senator, every Republican senator, is going to make sure that every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine, wherever they are, fighting for this country has everything they need. So, to spend a lot of time on funding is really a misdirection. We're going to do everything we need to do to take care of the American troops, wherever they are.

A little later, we get this:

BLITZER: Some Democrats, like John Murtha in the House of Representatives, they want a pretty speedy, you can call it redeployment or a withdrawal. But they want to move relatively quickly to get those troops out, especially the combat troops.

REID: Is that a question, Wolf?

BLITZER: Well, if you wanted to respond to that, you could.

REID: Yes, I would say I'm not familiar with what Congressman Murtha wants. You know, I have 99 senators here to worry about what they want to do.

But any proposal, I think, offered by any member of Congress, I think we should look at it very seriously...

Congressman Who?

Murtha has been an MC the entire quarter century that Reid has!

(Do we have a Cheney/Edwards problem here?)

[Just to be clear: I think that both Blitzer and Reid understood Blitzer's reference to Murtha wanting a withdrawal to be directed to his 2005 withdrawal measure H J Res 73, rather than to the Murtha Proviso.

However, Reid was, as I see it, most anxious to stay right away from all things Murtha, just to be on the safe side.]

I get the feeling that, if Harry got his way, the Senate text of the supplemental bill would be unlikely to include anything resembling the Murtha Proviso; and that the Proviso may well have a tough time surviving the attention of Senate conferees.

Of course, the Senate Apps chairman is Bobby Byrd (the defense subcommittee chairman is Inouye). Given Byrd's views on the war, it wouldn't be a shock if the bill (or, if he waits for the House bill to be sent across, the substitute) that he reports out included a Murtha Proviso-type provision.

(Possibly he has something even stronger in mind!)

In which case, presumably, Reid would engineer the passage of an amendment to strike the offending part of the Byrd text.

Interesting times...