As shameful as it is to admit, the real front in the war we now fight is not in Iraq, but is inside the Beltway. It is incredible to contemplate the comments by a Republican U. S. Senator that “the chances for success are limited”, not by our prospects on the battlefield, but by the “short period framed by our own domestic political climate”. This in spite of acknowledgment by the same Senator that there is progress being made in the situation on the ground in Iraq. In fact, it is widely anticipated that the report to be delivered in September by Gen. Petraeus is expected to be moderately to strongly positive, and a recent moderately positive appraisal of progress by two Brookings Institution analysts upon their return has led a few House Democrats to suggest that such an appraisal will be a “big problem” for their party, i. e., success for America is now defined as problematic for its majority party. It’s now pretty clear—if losing in Iraq will guarantee victory in 2008, that’s OK with the mainstream of the Democratic Party and their fellow travelers in the media. We used to have a word for that.
