http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,1205323,00.htmlBack home, Karl Rove was officially unindicted in the cia leak case, and the Democrats were busy being Democrats—divided, defensive and confused about the war, with Bush's favorite punching bag, Senator John Kerry, leading the charge.
Kerry gave an eloquent speech to a group of left-liberal activists on the day of Bush's Baghdad trip. "It is not enough to argue with the logistics
... or the manner of the conflict's execution or the failures of competence, as great as they are," Kerry said, to wild cheers. "It's essential to acknowledge that the war itself was a mistake." It was an appropriate act of contrition, but then—as is his awkward wont—Kerry overreacted and called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of the year. It was a proposition that garnered all of six votes on the Senate floor when Senate Republicans gleefully submitted Kerry's idea to a vote later in the week.
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What can the Democrats do? They can play politics or be responsible. The political option is to embrace "cut and run"; call for an immediate withdrawal, as Kerry did; and hope the public is so sick of Bush and sick of the war that it will punish the g.o.p. in the fall. But embracing defeat is a risky political strategy, especially for a party not known for its warrior ethic. In fact, the responsible path is the Democrats' only politically plausible choice: they will have to give yet another new Iraqi government one last shot to succeed. This time, U.S. military sources say, the measure of success is simple: Operation Forward Together, the massive joint military effort launched last week to finally try to secure Baghdad, has to work. If Baghdad isn't stabilized, the war is lost. "I know it's the cliche of the war," an Army counterinsurgency specialist told me last week. "But we'll know in the next six months—and this time, it'll be the last next six months we get."
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