Woke up this morning to read on the BBC that 30+ people were killed by bombs yesterday in Iraq.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7 475143.stm

So, is the surge working?  Clearly this is too small a sample size.  But such news is slightly complicated for dems.  Of course, we should not be rooting against the surge if its failure means escalating body counts, civilian and military alike, and destruction of critical infrastructure.  And this is exactly the position the McCain campaign and the republican party wants to put us in once again.  They want to position us as rooting against the troops, against the democratization of Iraq, against freedom, against peace, against goodness, God, and motherhood.

This is exactly why we must not let the surge be the central argument regarding Iraq.  As long as that is the policy in play, we should be hopeful skeptics, with an emphasis on the hope part.    Many of us have read David Brooks' latest and most absurd polemic "The Bush Paradox" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/opinio n/24brooks.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slo gin.  He basically argues here that the same obtuse and stubborn myopia that informed Bush's drive toward war also enabled the surge.  And while the former was bad, the latter was good.  

Here's an analogy:

X is a devoted research scientist.  His neighbor's kid has a chronic disease.  He takes it upon himself to unilaterally attempt an experimental and untested cure that puts the kid in the hospital.  Then he secretly doubles the dosage which seems to stabilize the kid, though it also leads to the amputation of his arm.  This episode harms his reputation and his grant money dries up, so his own kids now face staggering loans to pay for college.  

Who among us is willing to give X a Nobel prize?

Whether the surge is working or not is beside the point.  Bad news from Iraq is bad news.  We can and must structure the argument so that it does not function as good political news.  To do so, the democratic party must out cheer the republicans with regard to our troops, and it should not be hard to do so with utmost sincerity, even as we question strategy.  All focus should be on the irresponsible way in which this war was sold and prosecuted.  If McCain wants to take credit for the therapy that SEEMS to be stabilizing a patient he helped make sicker, and at the cost of crippling the patient and impoverishing his own family, we should highlight his role putting the kid in the hospital in the first place.

Democrats must be emphatically pro troops, pro Iraq, and pro responsibility in government.  This may seem obvious.  But we are not vocal enough about it yet.  We can frame this argument, not only with regard to our partisan goals, but with regard to logic, truth, and moral courage.