By Jake Tapper
ABC News
March 14, 2007 — Allies of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., point out that the current Senate Democratic proposal for U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq — introduced by Senate Democratic leaders and currently being debated on the Senate floor — strongly resembles plans Kerry introduced in both October 2005 and June 2006.
Moreover, Kerry's allies note — with regret in their voices and bile in their mouths — that for his efforts at the time Kerry was mocked and belittled by his fellow Democratic senators, at least one of whom joined Kerry at a press conference today to push the new proposal.
The current proposal, introduced by Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., would begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq within four months of enactment, with a goal of all combat troops out of Iraq by approximately this time next year.
<snip>
Senate Democratic leaders were described as shoving Kerry's proposal "into the evening, too late for the nightly television news, to starve it of some attention…interviews suggest a frustration with Mr. Kerry, never popular among the caucus, and still unpopular among many Democrats for failing to defeat a president they considered vulnerable. Privately, some of his Democratic peers complain that he is too focused on the next presidential campaign."
<snip>
Asked today about the lack of support — and anonymous sniping — he experienced back then from the same Democratic senators he stood with today, Kerry said "I'm not interested in going backwards."
He then resisted one more effort by this reporter to prod him into a more emotive response, smiled and walked off.
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http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2950814&page=2
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