It seems ironic that, especially with the administration attacking Democrats who voted for the war (putting aside, for the moment, the questionable accuracy of that statement) and are now against it, that we haven't heard more from those who opposed the war in the first place. Am I just missing those stories, or are those other Democrats sitting out this fight?

Of course, if they did speak up, we'd no doubt hear about how they were dishonoring the troops. Consistency has never been a necessary quality of the administration's arguments. The one bright spot is that I think moderates have finally had enough of this defensive posture. Americans don't want to hear about how the Democrats are wrong or how they voted for the war and then against it; we, blue and red, want to know what the President is going to do to fix it, and all of the "hey, no fair!" statements and Cheney appearances in the world aren't going to answer that essential question.

Citing Michael Moore? Jeez, what's next? Accusing those of us who oppose the war of being communists?

The Bush administration has created a trap from which they cannot escape. Because they never admit error and always attack those who disagree with them, as more and more evidence comes to light that demonstrates their errors (and deceptions), their further denials and attacks only serve to further discredit themselves.

The polls show clearly that more and more Americans are wising up to their mistakes and lies, and since only a sincere mea culpa by the administration--followed by concrete action that demonstrates they are sincere about fixing the problems--is likely to bring anyone back into their fold, they are doomed.

"Surrender to the terrorists"? From an official white house press release?

This sounds more like a teenager on the Yahoo boards trolling for attention!

I can't believe the rhetoric coming from the White House as it is, but this is simply knee-jerk emptiness.

He lists his reasons for coming forward now, rolling out a laundry list of Bush adminstration untruths, but every one of them were clearly apparent before the 2004 election. Oil paying for the rehabilitation of Iraq. The paltry size of the coalition (with apologies to Lichtenstein). The lack of global financial support. The number of troops deployed. The lack of WMD. Tax cuts. GIVE ME A BREAK! All of this was out in the open before the election last year, yet now Murtha speaks up. The guy with five deferments was there last year too, spouting the same exact campaign-styled venom, but now Murtha gets his dander up. The White House really insulted Michael Moore. Murtha isn't fit to shine Moore's sneakers.

You mention in your article that Dems were for the war when the polls showed Americans were for the war, but I'd like to point out that most Americans never were for the war (without U.N. authorization). A little piece of propaganda that has apparently even permeated the brains of the non-corporate media. This is from Wikipedia: "According to a mid-January 2003 telephone poll, approximately one-third of the U.S. population supported a unilateral invasion by the US and its allies, while two-thirds supported war if directly authorized by the U.N." Of course, the U.N. never authorized the war. If you recall, the U.N.'s view was that "[t]he attack violated international law as a war of aggression since it lacked the validity of a U.N. Security Council resolution to authorize military force, and was not an act of defence, and so violated the UN charter."-Wikipedia. The truth of the matter is, the Democrats have blown it, not by correcting themselves to public opinion now, but by going against public opinion back then.

There is no one in this NOT ONE person in this "administration" that is fit to shine John Murtha's shoes.

As far as the Democrats authorizing the war

One forgets that the Secretarty of Defense

Colin Powell told the German Magazine "Der Spiegel"

that the saddest moment of his life, was how

he was mislead by the faulty intellingence ,when

he talked to the United Nations about

the WMDs, chemical labs, etc.