This has been reposted from yesterday at the top of this site due to interest and an update.

Tuesday is truly “D-Day” f......

Not really; most voting is retrospective. In the case of Bush the elder, his problem was (a) that nobody cared about the Gulf War anymore ("success" meant that it was a non-issue) and (b) that perceptions of the economy didn't catch up with reality until after November 1992 (indeed, perceptions of the economy always have some sort of built-in lag as it takes time for new information to displace old information in the electorate).

Progressive blogs are afraid to discuss the Mideast War, because their commenters go into a frenzy of anti-semitic conspriracy rantings. How do they think they will be able to tell the broader electorate that their anti-war candidates will be able to keep them and their children safe?
They can't even engage into a decent military debate without crying "chickenhawk" and shutting down the discussion. The left is too unreliable on National Security. Still waiting on any plan from the left that doesn't rely on wishful thinking and reliance on the feckless UN or EU.

Oh geez, this is so obviously wrong - why do you spread such nonsense? Dean's "self-destruction" before a live TV audience happened AFTER he had spectacularly lost the Iowa caucuses and thus doomed his campaign. After that defeat, there was no way he would be the nominee, irresepctive of what his concessions speech would have been like.

It is the consequences that will haunt the democratic party again as we make the same mistakes we did thrity years ago. The difference is that AQ and its ilk are revolutionary organizations unlike what the Soviet Union became in the 70s. In addition, with the current lessons that Isreal is learning regarding the world's opinion of their actions, not having a nation state means having the world's sympathy when your victim fights back.

The problem with Lieberman isn't that he voted for the war; lots of Dems did and are getting no primary challenge. The problem is that he continues to believe the neocon fantasy and he continued (up to the day before yesterday) to lie about conditions in Iraq, claiming that everything is going just fine. That's what the Bush administration does: relies on ideology not reality, and covers up unpleasant facts with spin as if the war isn't real, just something on TV to be manipulated for its effect on domestic politics. No self-respecting Democrat wants a Democratic Senator to behave like that.

There is no easy answer to what to do about Iraq now. There are a variety of views on the subject which are accepted by the Democratic base. Most Democrats are willing to support any position except Lieberman's. The only requirement most Dems have is that our politicans repudiate the initial decsion to invade; what to do now is entirely an open question. In general the Democrats' ideas are in line with the public at large in wanting a withdrawal plan for sometime in a year or so. That's a pretty vague plan but it is impossible to be less vague without slipping into pipedream territory since we don't know what will happen in Iraq.

"Stay the course" is pretty vague too since it's just a slogan. What course? What changes are going to be made so it can be stayed successfully? Those questions won't be asked, let alone answered, by Bush or his kiss-ups, including Lieberman.

So there isn't any pro/antiwar dichotomy and it hasn't anything to do with being left or right. The dichotomy is between those who want politicians who are honest enough to recognize a problem and practical enough to be willing to discuss solutions (nearly every Democrat except Lamont) and those who insist that the neocon fantasy must be taken on faith and that that all birth pangs should be spun for domestic consumption with no real examination of policy (Bush etc. and Lieberman).

I think the real issue to those who insist on the false dichotomies is the question of who gets the blame over the mess. Republicans want to blame either the media or the Democrats and Dems like Clinton are afraid that the Republicans will be successful in shoving the blame for their mess onto the Democrats. That's a legitimate fear but it doesn't have to be dealt with be keeping a closet republican in a Democratic seat..

This is a false premise, I believe. It depends on how you define anti-war. A large majority of Americans want the war over and, in that sense, are anti-war. A sensible plan to withdraw American troops will be a winner. "Stay the course" will be poison. Fewer and fewer people are buying that one.

When a quarter million Iraqis show up in the streets of Baghdad chanting, "Death to America", I think it could be a real turning point for the American public. To me, and I'm sure to many others, that display was completely unacceptable and shows how badly the mission in Iraq has gone awry.

On Friday, even John Gibson on his Fox News' radio talk show was ready to throw in the towel and he's one of the biggest "bomb 'em to hell" guys out there. There is a seismic shift in opinion about the war underway.

And then, once's she's President, she can do whatever she wants.