"even with legislators as aroused as the incoming Democrats."

If this isn't deliberate irony, you've got to be kidding.

(To anyone who may have said the same thing earlier (and probably better) -- I haven't read all 80 posts yet, pls forgive. I'm not intentionally plagiarizing you.)

That's not to say that some political case cannot be made for deliberately allowing Bush's escalation to happen. The point has been made that Congressional interference with the Administration's "surge" plans would provide the wingnuts with just enough reality upon which to hang their blame for the failure of the Iraq fiasco on the Democrats -- just as they have tried to do with VietNam for an entire generation. Accordingly, this line of argument suggests bowing to the inevitable (Bush clearly won't let Congress take away his toy anyway), and letting the inevitable failure redound totally to the discredit -- and hopefully ultimate and permanent downfall -- of the reich-wing. (As if they'd let a little thing like truth get in the way of their blaming the failure on the "defeatocrats" anyway.)

But if the Congressional Dem's wind up unable or unwilling to prevent Bush's big push on Baghdad, does anyone really believe it will be because of a cynical calculation of the political benefits to accrue from God-knows-how-many more deaths? (As opposed to a continuation and extension of the fecklessness we've seen from the Dem leadership for far too long, the recent election notwithstanding.)

I really hope I turn out to be wrong on this... But I've had my hopes dashed too many times before.

Miracles do happen...

That sisyphus is totally right about the media's role in the '04 debacle doesn't take the onus off Kerry and his team of losers.

Everyone knew in advance just what was going to happen (if not the exact how) -- it's been long noted that the Rove style is to go after the oppositions' greatest strengths, not their weaknesses. And it had long been clear by that time that the media were actively supporting the Bush campaign. And the Kerry Krew STILL rolled over for the SBV. Not only no pro-active inoculation (which could easily have been done), but no response at the time -- a complete cave.

But to me, that's not even their worst move -- not even close. That would go back to the Democratic convention, when the word came down from on high that nobody was to go negative on Bush, that the convention woudn't turn into a "hatefest." (Thank God at least Rev. Sharpton had the spine to ignore the command.)

Because of course we can see how much the voting public hates a hatefest -- I mean, look at the utter repudiation that GWB got after the Repuke convention was nothing but a 3-day-long Two Minute Hate. Right.

That was the point at which it became clear that the Kerry Kampaign had allowed themselves to be totally played by Rove.

A pResidency that, at that time, could have EASILY been portrayed as the miserable failure that 50% of the voters already knew it to be, and with many more readily persuadable on the facts -- and they let it go. Didn't even swing. Pathetic.

And it is not just spin to think, as a few posters already noted, that if Kerry couldn't even defend himself against an opposing campaign's dirty deeds, how could he possibly defend us against the terrists? The fact that his focus on police work instead of conventional military response to terror might actually be a more effective approach notwithstanding, strength and the appearance of strength do count too, especially with the voting public.

To me, the single worst moment of the campaign was not "I voted for it before I voted against it," bad as that was. It was, "Mr. President, stop these attacks!" It was not at all unreasonable to wonder if he'd be saying "Mr. bin Laden, stop these attacks" once in office.

It's good that Kerry can apparently learn from his mistakes. Now let's hope the rest of the party can, too.

And can someone PLEASE outsource Shrum?