I think that it represents a real turning point, in fact. With the politicians taking at least somewhat of a break from the debate (at least relative to the period leading up to the election), it seems to be that the common wisdom has the opportunity to catch up with th reality of the situation.

Then again, it could simply be that Iraq is deteriorating so quickly and so profoundly that it is impossible for the establishment to maintain its longstanding reticence to call a spade a spade and admit that there is a civil war occurring in Iraq.

Either way, it's clear that the notion that the supposedly divisive and damaging Majority Leader race indicated that the Democrats either could not or would not take aggressive moves to change American policy towards Iraq is either hasty or just plain wrong.

Clearly the gap between Administration/FOX talking points and reality is going to hurt President's approval and FOX's ratings.  FOX may be able to adapt, since it is a finiancial as well as a political endeavor.  Certainly BushCo appears incapable of accepting reality publicly; I wonder about their ability to do so privately as well.  Rove seems capable of serving himself up some powerful Kool-Aid and passing the contagion to others that he shares too much space with.

As far as the rest of the GOP, to me it seems that they are (rather publicly) struggling for a way to close the gap.  Those that survived or got a bye in Nov. seem to have taken the hint.  M$M can crow all they want about 'conservative Democrats', the insiders know that it's open season on war apologists come '08.

The Baker Report seems to be the pivot that the Publicans plan to use to alter their collective course.  It cannot come fast enough for them.  Right now I think that Bush plans on largely ignoring it, and the Publicans plan on reaming him for that.  It's gonna be a long two years for The Chimp.

I'm hoping that the Democrats improve their position.  While they are still behind the curve on Iraq, they do not lag nearly as much as the Publicans.  The bottom line is that this is King George's war, and he still has control of it; he doesn't want to move out, so we'll pretty much be there and it will get ugly.

The Democrats have to seek to roll the war costs back into the regular budget, investigate war profiteering and get vital programs funding (e.g. body armor and addressing the injustices that face wounded veterans when the come home like denial of benefits and having their pay docked for time in the hospital).

Basically they have to return a modicum of sanity to our handling of the insane situation we find ourselves in.  The rank-and-file will be forced to fall into line behind them and President Fucktard and VP Vader will reflexivly oppose it - satisfying their need to tell the world to suck it and providing Publicans PLENTY of space to distance themselves for '08.

BTW - I don't think this is a strategic collaberation, this is just what I think will play out.

I think it will take a huge bipartisan consensus--like the one that toppled Nixon--to effect real change. Yes, we can talk about what we would do if we were in charge, but I'm not sure we as a nation have until 2008.

From the sound of things, I see a Dien Bien Phu-like disaster looming.

Personally, I think all of our forces should get out of Baghdad immediately and find defensible positions near the shore. The only thing useful they can do now is secure the oil fields near Kuwait and provide an entry point for the international forces that must someday arrive.

McCain is perhaps on the right track asking for 20,000 troops, but he's wrong by at least an order or two of magnitude. It might take a million conventional forces to stop the Rwanda-like killing that has already begun.

This time, the international community might act because an oil-revenue fueled terrorist movement--oil-fueled in the billions, not millions, of dollars--is the very definition of terrorism.

Yes, if the Democrats can lead the entire congress toward effective limitation of Bush, including a credible threat of impeachment and conviction of both the vice-president and president and perhaps the election of a consensus speaker to take the presidency, yes, then it makes sense and is probably a national imperative.

But the politics of running U.S. military and foreign policy from the House of Representatives with a thin, fractious majority seem very poor to me.

So I think we should let the GOP take the full weight of the blame and elect a Democrat--Kerry or Gore--to try to clean up the smoldering ruins and protect what's left of our armed forces.