New faces, same status quo: if we want our lawmakers to work for a "new direction"--and a direction to our liking--we must first recognize it will not happen if Congress is left to its own devices.(CONGRESS)

"The election of 2006 was a call to change, not merely to change the control of Congress, but for a new direction for our country," Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi said in her first speech as the Speaker of the House. "Nowhere were the American people more clear about the need for a new direction than in the war in Iraq."

Mounting public dissatisfaction with the Iraq War was a major factor contributing to the transfer of majority control in both the House and Senate from the Republicans to the Democrats. However, those voters who treated last fall's congressional election as a referendum against the war in Iraq may soon be disappointed with what the new Democratic Congress does, or fails to do, to oppose George W. Bush's Iraq policy.

Public perception aside, the positions of Bush and the new Democratic congressional leadership on Iraq are not exact opposites. President Bush has announced that he is sending an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq, but new Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Pelosi advocate a phased redeployment beginning four to six months from now as opposed to an immediate withdrawal of troops.

As we go to press, it appears likely that the Democratic Congress will vote on a nonbinding resolution expressing its opposition to the president's decision to send more troops. But what kind of response is that? According to Congressional Quarterly, this resolution "would be, by definition, nothing but symbolism."

In other areas too the differences between the new Democratic Congress and the Bush administration are not nearly as dramatic as many Americans perceive. In his editorial appearing in the Wall Street Journal the day before the new Congress convened, Bush recalled the bipartisan support the Patriot Act had received. Though Bush did not mention it, in the Senate only one lawmaker voted against the Patriot Act--Russ Feingold, a Democrat. That lopsided vote in the wake of 9/11 shows that the new Democratic Congress, if left to its own devices by a complacent citizenry, should not be expected to provide an impregnable bulwark against any erosion of civil liberties.

In his WSJ editorial, the president also boasted that Republicans and Democrats worked together "when our economy was struggling ... to pass tax relief that has helped our economy grow." The economy is still strained of course--because both Democrats and Republicans supported social-welfare programs, from the "No Child Left Behind Act" to the new prescription-drug entitlement program, that caused federal spending to go up at a faster rate with Bush as president than it did with Bill Clinton in the White House.

Unfortunately, with Democrats at the helm in Congress, federal spending is likely to continue its upward climb--for existing programs, and for new ones such as (possibly) universal healthcare, a.k.a. socialized medicine.