Last week Congressional Republican leaders dropped the $18 billion request from a popular emergency-spending bill.

But they made a strategic decision not to filibuster the highly popular family-leave bill in February.

And the Senate rejected his plan to include medical savings accounts in a popular bill to make health insurance more accessible.

Another popular bill would outlaw restrictions on what doctors could tell patients about treatment options.

Gary's own feelings about the popular bill were similarly mixed: It seemed a barbaric solution to an intolerable problem.

But it was not the only case of a popular bill's dying as lawmakers wind down their affairs.

That way, he said, the lawmakers did not have to worry about opposing what might otherwise have been a popular bill.

Some Republicans insisted today that they had no intention of delaying a vote on a popular bill.

Mr. Bush wanted to avoid vetoing the popular bill.

Some Republicans were plainly unhappy with such an amendment, fearing it would portray them as delaying a popular bill.