It is passing curious how the '04 election was a referendum on Iraq...until the Repubs won. After which is quickly was asserted that the election was all about creepy Christian values, and theocracy and stuff like that.
I suspect that the Dem leadership and the media will successfully use the election as cover to impose a withdrawal from Iraq though.
Because (will come the drumbeat) EVERYONE KNOWS that's what the people voted for.

Jim,MtnViewCA,USA:

The media will successfully use the election as cover to impose a withdrawal from Iraq...

I keep reading this at various blogs. But nobody ever explains the exact mechanism by which the Democrats or the media or anyone else can "impose" a troop withdrawl on George W. Bush.

What does CNN plan to do, take him hostage?

Dafydd

Dafydd: you must be joking. There is no way we are sending more troops to Iraq. GWB won't propose it - in fact the Baker commission will propose the partition of Iraq; the Dhims won't stand for it; and the Iraqi government won't support it. Only Johny Boy McCain is talking about this.

Dafydd:

I think they are thinking the Congress will cut off the money, but can they really get enough votes to do that and do they want the responsibility?

Mort Kondracke had some interesting numbers in this oped, if he is right only about 30% of the population want a complete withdrawal. I think people are just tired of the endless stories about car bombings and kidnappings. They want to feel like they are getting somewhere. I do think however, that most people are also afraid of what would happen to Iraq and to us if we just pulled out.

But I will not predict anything. I am not that damn brave.

Mort said it was the loud right that seemed to do cost the Republicans the election. His numbers are interesting. Especially the numbers on the issue of immigration.

jd:

I think people might want to hold back on the predictions here. We do not know for sure what is even in that report or what the president will do with it.

I think one of the things that hurt the Republicans in this last election was the willingness of people to jump the gun and assume what Bush was going to do.

We're not the only party in this conflict and it doesn't matter what we think we might say in January as much as what our enemies think right now. I predict they (our enemies) will think they have us on our heels and will do whatever they think will hasten our withdrawl. Maybe the fighting will get much worse rather quickly. Maybe it will cease all together (kind of doubt it...lol). Either way, they do think we just sent them the gigantic message that we will be "redeploying" very soon. We just admitted to them how to get us to leave. If they weren't before, they're hunkered down for the long hall now. So, they'll even see through the "doubling of the forces to fix the problem" gambit. We've been there, done that before and they know it. We just hung a giant kick me sign on our back. If we're going to consign those people to a civil war, I hope we at least find a way to give a weapon to all those who'd like one.

Terrye:

I think one of the things that hurt the Republicans in this last election was the willingness of people to jump the gun and assume what Bush was going to do.

Yes. And oddly, it always seemed to be "fellow" Republicans assuming President Bush would choose whatever option the assumer considered the worst possible.

When we were worried that we might not get a chance to get judicially conservative judges on the Court, and Bush nominated Harriett Miers -- the right instantly leapt to the conclusion that she must be a screaming liberal, because that was the worst possible thing Bush could have done.

When we heard that Dubai Ports World had bought out P & O, the right flew into a rage because they cleverly deduced that Bush had deliberately handed port security over to al-Qaeda -- after all, that was the worst possible thing he could do... so he must have done it.

Somehow, many of us seem to have an Eiffel Tower sized battery on our shoulders; and like Robert Conrad, we're always daring Bush to knock the battery off. C'mon, I dare ya! Just try it, you creepy, socialist mug!

Since what we're all most worried about right now is that Iran and Syria will someone conquer Iraq -- the high-verbal right now assumes that Bush brought Bob Gates in as SecDef in order to cut a secret deal with Iran and Syria to divide Iraq between them! Why? Because that's the very worst thing he could have done.

Not a single thought given to the motive: why would Bush do this? What could possibly be in it for him? Even if we decided (heaven forfend) that we must pull out of Iraq... the New Iraqi Army we built could do a pretty good job of defending their country from attack by Iran or its sock puppet: even the vast majority of Iraqi Shia don't want to be controlled by Persians.

Give them a little air support, and they'd be all right. So why on earth would we collaborate with one of our two greatest enemies to hand our ally over to Persian slavery? It doesn't make any sense at all.

Except this way: since that's positively the worst imaginable thing that Bush might do -- let's assume he'll do it. And then castigate him for it and call him a coward for doing it, all before we even see the stupid Baker report anyway. No sense waiting until the last minute to hate our president!

Dafydd

On Iraq, the Democrats are wrong to conclude the country doesn't want to win: just look at rich, liberal Connecticut. Joe Leiberman won a majority of the vote as an avowed pro-war candidate. The Congress won't make any political hay out of Iraq, and the Murtha-ites are not to be feared.

It isn't enough, IMHO, for the Murtha-type nutroots "not to be feared." What will bring the war quickly to a successful conclusion is to have these idiots subjected to a public smackdown, and sending MORE troops to Iraq with the stated objective of winning the battle would be the best way to do that.

My concern is that Bush is getting a lot of good advice from the blogosphere, and elsewhere, but he is one President who sticks by his convictions and may not heed it. And I still think he is too enamored of his "new tone" (which is really his fundamental personality) to put the verbal smackdown on anybody, no matter how wrong they are.

Re: "Americans aren't Spaniards."
How do you know? So far the pattern that emerges looks like they are.

snoch:

I have to say that there is some good advice out here in the blogosphere {like Dafydd} and there is some bad advice out here {like a lot of people}. In the end it is Bush's call and some people on the right who are always ready to assume the worst could help the cause a whole lot more by backing off a little. You know what they say about assume, it makes an ass out of you and me. Old joke I know, but true.

For instance the Right thought it had some good advice for the President and the House on immigration and if the exit polls in this election are to be believed the majority of voters do in fact favor comprehensive immigration reform and the vote for Republicans by the hispanic community was cut by almost 20%.

The inroads that Bush had made for Republicans in that demographic have been completely obliterated. They feel unwanted by Republicans. I wonder why.

In fact several hardliners were beat pretty bad even in the border areas where they were supposed to do well.

In an election where 70,000 votes across the whole country can move a party from majority to minority that kind of advice can be disastrous for the Congress and the party and the president. It was just an unnecessary loss. They misread the public and the president.

But that did not keep people on the right from calling Bush elPresidente and saying he should be impeached for not doing as they demanded. I heard things on the right that were every bit as paranoid as anything the nutroots came up with and it hurt both the President and the party and here they are ready to assume that Bush is surrendering to the mad mullahs. Cause they say so by God. I am getting really fed up with these people.

Dafydd:

My feelings about some of these people are that they have been about as much help to the Republicans as Kos has been to the Democrats.

Hey, Dafydd!

I like it! It's not a stretch to expect something like that from the President. It would be very welcome news to the majority of Americans who want to "win" the "war".

Terrye,

In fact several hardliners were beat pretty bad even in the border areas where they were supposed to do well.

People in the border areas like us (southern California), face illegal aliens everyday. And we know how important they are for the local community. They are not criminals. Most of them are hard working good people. That's why we don't necessarily support hardliners.

Although the aliens may not speak good English, I take those people over some of the lazy American born workers at the local Wal-mart around here, where I am temporarily staying (Norfolk, VA).

Dafydd,

I believe the decision to increase troop levels has already been made. Following your article "Sit Down, Take a Stress Pill, and Let's Talk This Out" I had a comment which referenced the Austin Bay article "Rumsfeld resigns– with analysis", in which he reveals the following inside knowledge from the Pentagon:

One of the very smart young officers I know suggests the resignation is political prep for prosecuting the war even more vociferously

Rumsfeld's departure is the first step in an existing plan to increase force levels in Iraq. It is a plan hatched by very smart people in the military, but is based more on poker than on military stratgy. The insurgents will not fold until we call their hand; it must be unquestionable to them that victory is our only acceptable outcome.

My only questions are in regards to the rest of the plan, for which the following two facts may be relevant

1. The fact that Rumsfeld's resignation was effective immediately
2. The speedy replacement of Gates on the Iraq Study Group.

Are these clues that Bush might not wait until January?

Has he been waiting only until the elections were over, reminiscent to his decision to wait until the 2004 elections were over before the final Fallujah assult?

But how can he possibly do this without the approval of Congress?

Enter James Baker.

From the WaPo:

But commentators seem more certain of a change in policy than Baker himself, who told ABC News earlier this month that he was "not sure" the Bush White House would follow the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, the panel Baker co-chairs with former Indiana congressman Lee H. Hamilton. Baker has not said what those recommendations might be, only that a "change of course" may be necessary in coming months.

Could this be brilliance? Baker has manged to get the MSM/Left on his side without them knowing precisely what the report is going to say. If it now recommends an increase in force levels there will be support from all sides and no need to get explicit approval from Congress! And your suggestion that Bush admit his mistakes, that a change of course is required, will further increase support!

JP

JP Phish:

Mea culpa -- now that you remind me of your comment, I'm sure that's what started me thinking that:

• The Democrats never actually promised, as a party, to demand defeat;
• Bush may well have come to the conclusion on his own that we don't have enough troops in Iraq;
• And that he would certainly support increasing the troop level, if his commanders asked for it -- where I do not believe he would ever accept a withdrawl without victory.

I should have given you a hat tip. I'll go back and do so now, and again, my apologies: your comment did indeed start that snowball in my head!

Dafydd

Excerpted and linked. Dafydd, I'd love to think W was smart enough to give a speech like that, but if he was he'd have fired Rumsfeld before the election and announced a change in direction then.

Dafydd,

That's a great speech. But do you have one Mr. Bush might actually give?

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