War Weary

It will be interesting to see how the Senate moves towards the country with regard to the lifetime engagement that we've blundered into in Iraq. Senator McCain and Warner are now putting forth a milquetoast version of a "support the troops" amendment that merely ensures that we doom more young men and women to the meat grinder indefinitely. The fact that the Republicans in the Senate have threatened successfully to filibuster any legislation that legitimately attempts to curb the administrations stubborn war-without-end policy has been successfully been spun in the mainstream media as a Democratic failure. That certainly enables Bush as he kicks the can down the road, waiting patiently until 2009, when he can party like mad, cause school is out.

But eventually, even the diehards will fold. I see more and more bumper stickers against the war each day. Cocktail party chatter (at least as far as I could describe my neighborhood parties as "cocktail parties") has changed dramatically over the past months. The topic of Iraq, which was off the table, is now not only on the table, but the "conventional wisdom", to misuse that phrase, has moved towards a broad realization that we are in the singular historical position of living during the most inept administration in the history of the republic. We'll all be telling our grandkids about W one day....

So, the Senate will come around, and the Jim Webbs and Russ Feingolds will be vindicated. But that won't matter, because by the time they come around, the Dems will be in the White House, and the dangerous question of just how we extricate ourselves from this Mess-o-potamia will be hers. And at that point, you can cue the band, and the outraged opposition will begin the familiar whine....it's all Clinton's fault.

UPDATE: Glen Greenwald eviscerates David Brook's column in the NYT. Brooks is one of the beltway pundits that deceitfully equates his own opinion with the mainstream, while clearly ignoring all factual data to the contrary. Like Congress, beltway pundits like Brooks and Broder will eventually realize that the American people are far ahead of them in their disdain for this tragic foreign policy.