Another reason the Democrats will win in '08

To add a quick addendum to the last post: something to think about here is the future of the surge in Iraq. We've been told a number of times now that by extending deployments and shell-gaming our troops around, we can sustain the increased troop levels in Iraq only through April of next year.

After that, we'll have to start pulling back. This occurred previously, when a drawdown was attempted in 2005 by condensing our presence into the larger cities: which led to the escalating violence in 2006, which led to the present surge - and to something else. It led at least in part to the Democrats' win last fall.

The long and short of it is: we don't have the resources - or, rather, we're unwilling to raise taxes and instate a draft to get the resources - to hold off the Great Bloodletting there much longer. (One alternative, per Joe Biden, is to use what resources we've still got, while we've still got them, to push for a three-way partitioning of the country before they do it to themselves much more violently. But Bush isn't going to do that. He's going to wait out the clock and blame the subsequent catastrophe on the Democratic congress and on the next president).

Whatever happens, Iraq - and the Republicans - are very likely to look a lot worse 15 months from now than they do today. So, whether for good or for ill, the White House press corps can start rehearsing the phrase, "Madam President" about now....