This was the lede 2 hours ago.  This is an attempt to paint Senator Barack Obama as a Waffler.

First let me state CLEARLY, there is no change, there has never been any change, and there will be no change in Barack Obama's position on ending the Iraq war.  He has been saying since he entered the race that after "consultation" with the Generals on the ground, he would issue an order to the Joint Chiefs to prepare an immediate plan to end the war.  He has said it will take 18 months, at the rate of one to two brigades per month, to get the troops home.  He has said it may be necessary to leave a few troops in place to guard the embassy, and finalize the training of Iraqi police and military.  That's what he said, that's what he is saying, and that is what he will do.

That is NOT how the raving Cable Guys and Gals are presenting a deliberate misreading of a statement he made this morning.  And, although we know the press can't do nuance, this has Karl's sticky finger all over it.

and, I suspect, even harder to read.  

Having survived the Purity Wars that destroyed all of the movement toward Progressive politics in a blood bath of self-referential pettiness in the late 1960's, having laughed along with many others at the jokes about "circular firing squads", having grimaced at the constant smug observations that "this is the Democrat's to lose, and they always find a way", I see the same foolish tendencies growing daily in this community.

One of the things that has given me hope during the past, dark days of Gingrich/Rovian politics is that they would destroy themselves.  In a Constitutional democracy no individual, or small groups of individuals, demanding ideological purity, can long survive.  People come to their senses.  They break out of the head lock of fear, and hate, and narrow self interests to emerge wiser and less vulnerable to the tactics that captured them.  It has certainly taken longer than I hoped, but it is happening.

As DHinMI  points out in his front page diary (Repub Congressman Diagnoses GOP Illness, Declares Them Terminal), Tom Davis, former head of the GOP congressional campaign, has done a very interesting analysis of the problems House Republicans will have hanging come this November.  The memo is very much worth reading, as DHinMI says, for that reason alone.  But that isn't all of what Davis writes about in his memo.  A good piece of it concerns the presidential race, and what Davis perceives to be Obama's weaknesses as a candidate vs. John McCain.

You don't have to agree with Davis in order to learn something from his analysis.  But the core of it is this: Davis believes that economic populism is the key to the presidential vote, and he believes that Obama is not reaching this populist vote.

We need to make damn sure that Davis is wrong.

President Bush's remarks at the Knesset:

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.

We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is—the false comfort of appeasement

This is just the latest example of an important facet of the emerging Republican strategy to attack Barack Obama in the general election campaign.

Republican strategy: win over African-Americans that the Clintons have alienated for a big win come November!

I went to sleep with a lot of threads in my head.  I woke up with something of a bow.  I saw McCain booed yesterday.  I also saw another Democrat announce that she would not seek reelection because she was confident that a Democrat could win in '08 and she was unsure about 2010.  And an article that she brought the total to 30 retiring House members.  A while back, Kucinich dropped out to campaign for his Ohio seat because another "Democrat" was challenging him.  Lieberman was on stage with McCain the other day. Congress' approval rating sits at around 18%.  And Congress isn't getting anything done.  Like I said, a lot of threads.

Most of you reading this, I am sure, want to elect a Democrat president, preferably one that is "progressive", in 2008.  The political environment so favors the Democratic Party right now that any fairly competent nominee is probably guaranteed at the very least a highly competitive race in the mold of 2000 or 2004.  However, because of this extraordinarily rare and exciting moment, when we have an opportunity to build on majorities in the House and Senate and convincingly win a national election, it is crucial, I believe, that we be very studious in who we select to go up against the Republicans, and attempt to avoid another late election night holding our breaths.  

Like always, we must balance our head and our heart, but we can only use the former properly if we recognize and acknowledge what has hindered us and aided the opposition in the recent past.

This time in the election cycle, poised as we are at the starting gate of the 2008 National Elections Marathon, we are primarily focused on what we -- Progressive Democrats -- want and who we are as voters.

But what about the "Other Guy"?  What are the concerns of the Republicans for their chances?  How do they interpret the polls?  What is affecting their strategy?

Let's take a peek and share the view inside the Republican camp and compare it to our own.

First the illusions were shattered.  We elected them, telling all of our Republican neighbors that if the Dems were given control we could end this Republican War.

We told them that the corruption would be exposed through "oversight".

We promised that starved social programs like WIC, and Medicare, and health insurance would be revitalized.

We vowed that the un-Constitutional actions of the Bush Administration would be brought to a halt.

It's not bad enough that such a tragedy has occured but trying to play the hero and make Democrats look bad at the same time really makes me angry. Read on and tell me if you see what I see in this article.  

There have been several diaries written about David Vitter so I won't elaborate on the details.  It is pertinent that the GOP change the subject from the family values issue to the Iraq War.

The transparency is obvious as Bush makes a surprise visit to Iraq to kick off the week and stay with the strategy to pressure Democrats in voting for the additional  50 Billion for the Iraq War  The strategy is to keep the Dems on the defense and arguing amongst themselves regarding an Iraqi pullout.  It is the strategy of dividing and conquering the Democrats while they pull an old bait and switch maneuver on the Craig/Vitter prositution solicitation issue...

       On July 16th undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman(bio here:http://www.defenselink.mil/...)responded to questions Senator Clinton asked about redeploying our forces out of Iraq.

He wrote,

"Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia,"

       There is no question that this response to a responsibly asked question by a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee was reasonable and appropriate, and the administration's response was a typical overreaction to any questioning of their failed policies.

This is a step in a rotation.

The White House and the Rove-GOP still do not have a candidate for 08.

McCain is trying to suck all the air out of the room by hiring everyone, but the WH will not support him no matter what.   Mitt and Rudy will play out from outside DC.

Rove wants Condi to run.   This is a signal she has agreed.
He will run her from the VP position.
Negroponte is over at State to help force that issue and put him in place to fill her role

Below.

Republicans and the President have been running around squawking about bi-partisanship a lot lately.  In fact, they're all over the airwaves.  It's easy to get past the hypocrisy and see this as another episode of Projection.  They know how they treated Democrats the past six years and don't want to be treated the same.

It's not bi-partisanship they're after though.  They're trying to frame the debate and control the conversation, just like when they got Nancy Pelosi to take impeachment off the table.  What the republicans are after is equality.  

They don't want to be a minority party so they're trying to raise the level of bi-partisanship the public should expect so high that if the Democrats do anything less than share power 50/50 they will be called partisan hacks straight through 2008.  

The republicans do this all the time; we should be ready for such things by now.  However as of now they are the only people on the airwaves who are talking about bi-partisanship, which means they are the people who get to frame the debate.

Listening to the radio today in the car, it was astonishing to hear serious debate about a "troop surge."  My ears immediately perked up.  To me "troop surge" -- a phrase meant to suggest that an additional token force in Iraq might represent some kind of momentum change -- suggests Rovian marketeering (you know, the people who brought us "weapons of mass destruction" to conflate nukes and mustard gas, and "the Patriot Act" to conflate patriotism and creation of police-state apparatus).

The "Troop surge" branding indicates that the idea is very likely coming from the marketing guys, er, political guys at the White House.  Add in consideration that, as policy, its an idea that falls between empty and idiotic, and you can bet that this whole debate is mainly about product positioning (i.e., Republican campaigns in 2008).

(Further argument below)

Being rather a novice at the whole political game and noting how instrumental the DSCC and DCCC chairs were for us this cycle, I decided to dig down a little and find out some details about the newly elected NRCC chair, Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma.

My findings? Be prepared, folks. We're in for an even more brutal fight next time around.

Details on Rep. Tom Cole below the fold...

While our side debates who gets credit for success, the debate rages on the right as to why they failed so badly last Tuesday.  The newspaper Investors Business Daily (www.investors.com) --  a newspaper with a stridently and consistently conservative editorial stance -- summarizes some of this debate in its Monday Nov 13 issue (password required) A few quotes from that article show the range of points of view.  The author summarizes the situation as "...many conservatives are now claiming vindication of their principles and just deserts for a straying party."

Take all this with a huge grain of salt, of course, given its source, but despite the inherent bias it's useful to understand what the other side is saying about itself, in its own pages.

(see below)

GOP chairman accused of 'race-baiting'

By his fellow Republicans. As reported in the Grand Rapids Press, local Goopers are trying to oust state Republican Chair Saul Anuzis because of losses in West Michigan last Tuesday.

Race baiting? In Grand Rapids? Did somebody get confused about the "Southern Strategy"?

As Kos has mentioned, there's enough credit to go around for everybody for last Tuesday's Big Blue Wave. And on the other side, it looks like there's plenty of blame getting thrown around, too. And I, frankly, am not ashamed to admit that watching the conservative circular firing squad is highly entertaining.

Grab a bag of popcorn and pull up a seat.