I don't comment on politics much, but I generally agree with the thrust of this post. The GOP primary base remains hugely hawkish, and will not support anything less than full-throated support for the Bush administration's war policy.

As a footnote, I would add Jim Gilmore to Glenn's list of unsuccessful Republican candidates who have not toed the line on Iraq. Domestic conservative Gilmore, who dropped out over the weekend, broke with Bush on Iraq about a month ago and came out for drawing down U.S. forces and redefining their mission.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/17/AR2007061700943_pf.html

Of the GOP front-runners, I think Romney has left himself the most wiggle-room on Iraq. He supports the surge, but caveats that with the common wait-for-Petraeus-in-September dodge. However, Romney has been guardedly critical of the administration's Iraq history. (See his 60 Minutes interview of a couple of months ago.) Like some congressional Republicans who would be running scared in the general election, Romney seems prepared to pivot when the time comes.

However, Glenn is correct. No viable GOP candidate can do this during the primaries, where pandering to the base is paramount.

On a related matter, the non-Iraq "war on terror" and associated legal issues such as detainee treatment, domestic spying, etc., the major Republican candidates have fallen all over themselves to support Bush. And no one will allow himself to be perceived as less extreme than his competitors. To me, that is at least as serious a generalization about the party's stars today as the generalization about Iraq policy.

The closest thing to dissent we have seen there was from McCain, and his record is on such matters is actually far less than ideal. He tried to straddle the torture issue with a half-hearted maneuver on the Military Commissions Act last fall, which earned him further enmity from the neocon right but was far less than a principled stand that might have won admiration from the other side.

I think your post reaches to the core issue, Glenn.

I fear that congressional Democrats are reaching for the easy, cheap shots at Gonzales-as-dissembler and deliberately avoiding the underlying question of what illegal activity was going on for two years before March 24. Whatever it was, it apparently was more egregiously illegal than the domestic spying program we know something about.

No one -- not Leahy or Schumer or Feingold, and certainly not Specter -- is actually pursuing disclosure or prosecution of that illegal activity. Whatever it was, even if it was discussed in secret briefings to eight legislators of both parties meeting in secret, those briefings could not excuse its illegality.

While this episode illustrates the coopting and impotent nature of secret oversight, I do not assume that congressional overseers are blameless in this matter.

I, too, was persuaded by Anonymous Liberal's analysis that the move to prosecute Gonzales for lying does have legs. The other factor affecting my judgment on that point was FBI Director Mueller's House Judidiary testimony, which was very damaging to Gonzales.

A.L. calls for impeaching Gonzales immediately. While impeachment should remain on the table, I think the immediate step should be to support the call to Solicitor General Paul Clement to appoint a special counsel.

I would go further and seek a mandate for the special counsel to investigate the underlying violations of FISA, etc., but I realize that few are willing to join me in that. I still believe that the illegal surveillance -- before and after the mutiny at DOJ in March 2004 -- is the bigger issue.

Notably, Leahy has not yet endorsed the request to Clement, and is waiting for Gonzales to send written clarifications (due Aug. 1) to his recent Senate testimony. That sworn testimony is significant, but the smoking-gun testimony A.L. dissects came Feb. 6, 2006.

Specter, after a plane ride on Air Force One, opposes a special counsel. Frankly, I don't trust him at all on this one, since he carried the White House's water last year and tried to gut FISA while pretending to be a critic of the surveillance program.

It is also notable that much of the documentary evidence about the domestic surveillance program which Senate Judiciary has subpoened -- including, I believe, both the DOJ legal memos and the 45-day authorization documents -- is still under discussion with Fred Fielding, who has been granted extended time to reply. Formally, no privilege has yet been asserted on those documents.

One reason I favor the special counsel route is that he would already be in a strong position under the Nixon tapes precedent to overcome an assertion of privilege. Another is that it would be much easier to convince a jury than 67 partisan senators to convict Gonzales. No doubt he would be pardoned eventually if convicted, but a criminal indictment itself would probably force him from office.