As the Senate prepares to vote on a troop withdrawal plan for Iraq, Republican presidential contender John McCain says that “sooner or later, my Democratic colleagues will find that we should sit down and work on this issue together for the good of the nation.”

Does anyone have any idea what he’s talking about?

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group made recommendations for the way forward in Iraq. The Bush administration pretty much ignored them. Republicans and Democrats in the House and the Senate have urged the president to re-think his plan to escalate the war. He has rejected their advice. In a new Pew poll, 59 percent of the people who responded said they’d want their member of Congress to vote for a measure that would require the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by August 2008. The White House has said that the president won’t make decisions based upon polls — and that he’s sure the American people wouldn’t want to withdraw from Iraq if they knew that withdrawing would be losing.

So, “sit down and work on this issue together”? There’s someone who hasn’t tried to do that yet, but it’s not those who are calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. It’s the man at the other end of the Pennsylvania Avenue who is keeping them there.