The reason the Dem's care as much as they do about Iraq is because of all of their other issue areas Iraq touches on: they believe American arrogance in general as represented by our unnecessary attack on Iraq in the face of world opposition harms our nation by weakening our alliances and fanning anti-Americanism, thus endangering our security (again, unnecessarily); they are abhorred by the lies our govt. fed us leading into the war and as it has progressed and oppose the false democracy that results when the people are misled by their leaders; they are concerned at the total failure to remain focused on the war against Al Qaeda that our Iraq adventure represents and that it has allowed Al Qaeda to survive and recruit more fanatics than it could have done otherwise; and on and on.

There are many others issues of concern for Dems including global warming, protecting our constitutional freedoms, checking the current executive's push for despotism, health care, living wages, an equitable system of taxation, ensuring a quality public education for all citizens regardless of class, ensuring equal opportunity regardless of class, and so on. All are very important. But none have the surface immediacy of seeing our young soldiers dying in a cause that was foolish, unnecessary, and that has harmed our country.

Do you really see the Republicans as monolithic. There are a lot of very serious debate within the party. Immigration, government spending, effectiveness of homeland security, etc. The problem is that the democrats don't seem to be offering very much in the way of alternatives (other than gridlock and 'no'). I think a big part of the "unity" you see in the democratic party is that they are out of power. Rather than cut the best deal they can, they keep looking for a miracle at the next election. Being out of power, they don't have to get into the messy details, even though responsibly they should.

Imagine if the democrats 1) acknowledged that social security and medicare are not on solid financial footing, 2) proposed solutions. Now I may not like the solution (e.g. lets raise taxes and ignore the unintended consequences of that), but the example would be a serious proposed solution for a serious problem. But by not facing up to reality, not proposing solutions, the problem gets worse, not better. And with the democrats favorite solution of not voting for cloture as the one button of government they like to push, the republicans can't get a proposed solution through either (which I assume you would dislike as much as I would dislike the raising taxes idea). But at least I see the GOP trying (even if they fail more than I would like).

But it is also a catch-22 situation. If the democrats start proposing real solutions, including the messy details, then they will start having the internal debates also. Further, the question is will they turn off more people by the solution (e.g. raising taxes) than they attract for being honest players in the role of government. Possibly, it isn't clear. But minority status is clear if they don't start acting responsibly.

The war is what the left/democrats have rallied behind, but it wasn't a winner in 2004, doesn't look like a winner in 2006 and given the current trends, is likely to be an albatross around the democrats neck as the reality on the ground gets contrasted with their public statements.

WASHINGTON | The fissures inside the Democratic Party over the war in Iraq were on vivid display Tue...

But it's false that this is the only issue Democrats care about. Most polls show that registered Democrats are concerned about health care, the economy, and education, just like registered Republicans. The war issue is used as a test, but it's not the only issue of concern.

Democrats raise the issue of Iraq for cynical reasons. They see that most centrists have shifted to anti-war and they seek to exploit that shift to make political gains.

The erosion of support for the War in Republican circles is a much more interesting (and disappointing) phenomenon.

I am always open to the possibility that the media coverage of an event is flawed. Indeed, it's usually the case.

But we have this, too, not the single instance:

Clinton finished on a more positive note, with an exhortation about winning the November elections that brought audience members to their feet cheering. But within minutes, as she worked the rope line on her way out of the hotel ballroom, she was the target of protesters, who chanted "Bring the troops home" and "Stop the war."

Now, how many protestors there were and what other people are doing is unclear. But it certainly seems like a big deal.

Let me emphasize again that â??Clinton won repeated applause through most of her speech.â?? Still, the fact that the presumptive overwhelming frontrunner for the 2008 presidential nomination is getting such disrespectful treatment from her own partisans over a rather nuanced position on the war is striking.

No, what's striking is the emphasis in the story on the booing of one specific issue over the enthusiastic support on many other fronts. It's not that the Dems are one-issue, it's that the media are already trying to cast the Dems as one-issue.

Beinert is targeted by Tomasky and Schmitt, and neither seems to be able to put the mirror down....

It's the fault of the warriors. It's because of Iraq. The war in Iraq is why we "missed" Darfur, a moral error that your magazine (under new editorship) recently lamented. And the war in Iraq looms over our national future.

and this one from Mark Schmitt's comments about Bienert:

The big moral question for our time, the one we have to get right just as the postwar liberals had to get totalitarian communism right, is the Iraq War and the ideology that underlies it.

A one-trick pony, to be sure...

A.L.

But lets postulate a potential scenario. In a campaign season that started with serious talk of regaining majorities in the senate and house, lets consider what would happen if events like the Kossack's Tester win in Montana resulted in the numbers in congress remaining the same or even improving for the GOP. Not the most likely scenario, but at least as credible as thing stand as the dems winning control of congress.

Now where would Hillary be when she looks at a presidential bid? If the left's wet dream of a reverse 1994 didn't come about in 2006 (and actually backfired giving the majorities larger than the current 75 year maximum), is there any possibility that they might reconsider their political jihad on this single issue? From the liberals I've talked to, the facts don't seem to matter as much as the position. So I see them just wanting to play their single note more shrilly and louder rather than question their position. This of course would likely cause an even worse debacle in 2008. On the other hand, the rest of the party may actually start to marginalize them. This is likely to still cause a defeat in 2008, but it will at least sow the seeds for an eventual comeback.

So enter Hillary. Already tagged as a calculating politician who takes positions for the political expediency, not political principles. Her being declared anathema by the left may actually help her. If the dems make big gains, the far left will be so embolden that her vote on the war will doom her permanently. No change she could make now would save her. But if the far left's tactics stumble in November, she actually gets to take credit for a centrist stand (still to the left, but certainly more rational and centrist than say Kerry) against strong opposition. So the political calculus says she is dead politically if she jumps positions anyway but may be in a better position if she stays the course. So being the calculating politician, I suspect she will stay the course.

Parties have split over wars before, with the Whigs destroyed over the issues that led to the Civil War...

It's worth pointing out that the Whigs had already hurt themselves with vehement opposition to the Mexican War -- even Lincoln spoke very strongly against it at the time. Their position might have been right or wrong, but politically it was a major blunder.

The subsequent inability of the party to agree on the issues regarding slavery and the territories exposed the Whig Party as having not deepened much since its origin as essentially the anti-Jackson party (hence its name, a reference to Jackson's alleged "royal" ambitions).