House Renews Antiterror Law, but Opposition Builds in Senate

Ms. Stolberg, were you in a rush when you wrote the following? Too hasty to think back to how the legislation about the Department of Homeland Security was drafted, revised, etc.?

Emphasis added.

The vote is also laden with political implications for Democrats, who suffered at the polls in 2002 after defeating legislation to create a Department of Homeland Security. Republican backers of the bill are taking pains to remind Democrats of that, as did Ken Mehlman, the head of the Republican National Committee.

I seem to recall that the Democrats pushed for the DHS and Bush resisted. Later on, when Bush wanted to take ownership of the effort, he had a poison pill (an anti-union measure) entered in the legislation. The Dems would not swallow the poison pill, and Bush and the GOP have been taking credit for the DHS and slamming the Dems ever since.

Please be more precise in your descriptions. And please do not claim that this is a "partisan view" of what happened. I may be partisan, but my description above is absolutely objective.