Whether you voted for Republican Lincoln Chafee — a perfectly good antiwar senator — or embraced the arguments for a Democratic Senate and went with Sheldon Whitehouse, you must be furious today.

It’s late February and the Democrats — who promised that with Whitehouse’s election and a Senate majority they’d begin to change the world — can’t even pass a meaningless resolution to denounce President Bush’s troop escalation in Iraq.

I told Whitehouse the other day that I’m angry and frustrated. He said I “absolutely” had the right to be. He’s upset too, though I’m not sure he appreciates how ridiculous the Democrats look.

He said, “I’m particularly angry and frustrated that, after as strong a message that the election sent across the country, George Bush has absolutely no interest in listening or in changing his point of view… He’s just going basically straight ahead as if nothing happened. And I think that the House and the Senate will continue to keep pressure on him — I hope increase pressure.”

I said no one any longer expects Mr. Bush to bend; people look to Congress to force an end to the war. But the Senate, though 7 Republicans sided with the Democrats, still failed last week to get the 60 votes needed to proceed with debating the symbolic anti-surge resolution. Whitehouse said this is preliminary, that Democrats must raise the stakes with tougher measures, and, importantly, look to grass roots pressure around the nation to swing more GOP senators around.

Whitehouse asserts that, although Saturday’s 56-34 vote saw the Democrats fall short, it still sent a “strong message.” I said the message was that the Democrats can’t get their act together. They should have found a way to work through Republican opposition, even if it meant agreeing to vote also on a GOP measure to rule out cutting funds for troops in the field. At least that way the Democrats could have gotten their own resolution through. I asked Whitehouse, “What’s the matter with you people?”

He said, “I’m impatient, if not more impatient.” But he said Democratic leaders, as a starting point, were trying to focus the issue narrowly on the escalation idea. Over time, he said, Democrats will push stronger measures, such as limiting funds, setting withdrawal timelines, or repealing the 2002 resolution that authorized the war. He said he’d back any and all such steps.

I asked if he wakes up every day vowing to do something about Iraq. He said he looks to see how he can help the Democrats, with their razor-thin majority, get the job done. “The time may come when I just say, you know, ‘The hell with that, I’m off on my own, I’m going,’ but I can see that if the Republicans can divide us so that 10 people want this kind of resolution, another 15 want this kind of resolution, 3 want this resolution, 20 want that resolution, then we end up spread all over the place.”

If I were in Congress, I’d be haunted by a vision: Next week, a year from now, or two, I go to a soldier’s funeral. I offer condolences to the family and say, “If there’s anything I can do for you, please let me know.” And the family replies, “Well, there was something, but you didn’t do it.”

I wouldn’t want that on my conscience. “You’re absolutely right,” Whitehouse said. “If only it were that easy. I wish we could go right to that and get it done like that, but we have these procedural obstacles to get to, we have the Republicans we have to get through, and it’s going to take some doing.”

I wonder how many more people will die in the meantime.

M. Charles Bakst is The Journal’s political columnist.

mbakst@projo.com