And that's sort of the frustration that I'm sensing from some Republicans, not, not inside the White House, but on Capital Hill and on the campaign trail a little bit . . . In 2008 it's going to be a real death knell for the Republican Party.

You think the Beltway understands this? They do not. Not even most Dems understand this.

Last I checked not only was Capital Hill located inside the Beltway but your friend Chuck, political directory for NBC, would be the personification of inside-the-beltway wisdom.

Not only does he repeat Rovian frames that weakens the Democrats' strongest option, "We're not going to vote to cut funding, period," he stupidly begs Bush to veto the bill so as to hasten the Democrats' capitulation of a meaningful timeline to end the occupation.

After a veto, [Levin] said, "there's a number of options. Either we can keep the benchmarks part of the bill without saying that the troops must begin to come back." And if that doesn't work, "what we will leave will be benchmarks, for instance, which would require the president to certify to the American people if the Iraqis are meeting the benchmarks for political settlement, which they, the Iraqi leaders, have set for themselves."

every time Democrats propose something that allows them to potentially take co-ownership of the war, Bush actually stops them

Well, it's interesting. What I don't understand what the White House is doing is that every time Democrats propose something that allows them to potentially take co-ownership of the war, Bush actually stops them,

Evidently Todd places everything in a political light, which is not unusual for an obviousl Left Wing Demo type.

Bush doesn't want the Demos to take co-ownership, he wants help for the troops. When the Demos continually talk wihdrawal and place it in the fundung bill he understands that helps the terrorits and hurts the troops.

"a wet man is not
frightened of the rain. . ."

it conveys the sense that
many iraqis are accustomed
to numerous hardships -- in-
cluding those occasioned by
imposed, outside rulers -- going
back well-beyond the beginning
of the twentieth century. . .

i suspect that most inside the
beltway -- unfortunately, democrats
largely included, here -- are truly
ignorant of the british experience
in iraq occupation from, call it 1914,
to the 1920s -- the echoes are deafening. . .

Unless this is some kind of psych (towards what ends I can't imagine) the Democrats are trying to pull on on Bush and the GOP, I think the fix is in.

It's becoming apparent to me that virtually no one in Washington on either side of the aisle has the desire or the courage to take a principled stand and end this mess. Wonder how the public is going to react when this becomes more obvious.

Guess it will take massive riots in the streets (yeah, like that's going to happen) to get the pols to respond to the polls, because right now it appears most of them are not only stone deaf,  but they living on a different plane of reality.