IRAQ TURNING POINT?

"Unlike his father, Bush deliberately timed the vote on the war declaration for maximum impact on the 2002 midterms; he delayed progress on the UN declaration in order to maintain that as hot button for his base; and the Downing Street Memos make clear that the timing of 'spikes of activity' against Iraq were related to the midterm elections as well.

"The rest of the world sees this too and asks the obvious question: If Bush himself treats the war on terrorism as just another partisan club, like tort reform or tax cuts, why should anyone else take it any more seriously? It's a hard question to answer."

Bill Kristol is fed up with the Senate GOP:

"Pathetic.

"One expected no better of the Senate Democrats, who want to get out of Iraq as soon as possible, or sooner than possible--most of them don't really care--and who want to embarrass president Bush. But couldn't the Senate Republicans have stood and fought against passing an irresponsible resolution suggesting that Americans want to get out of Iraq more than we want to win?

"The Republican leadership may have figured they didn't have the votes to defeat the Democratic proposal without giving their members a weaker alternative to vote for. But better to lose such a vote by a small margin than to go on record voting for a resolution that sends a signal of irresolution and weakness at precisely the time when a message of strength is most needed. After all, in precisely a month, the Iraqis will vote for their first government under the new constitution, and one thing they must weigh in their calculations is whether they can count on U.S. staying power in the fight against the terrorists. With today's vote in the Senate, the Republican leadership, apparently working hand in glove with White House staff, showed itself today to be tactically myopic and politically timid."

Robert Scheer , who was just dropped by the LAT, continues his Bush-bashing at the Huffington Post:

"The basic claim of the president's desperate and strident attack on the war's critics this past week is that he was acting as a consensus president when intelligence information left him no choice but to invade Iraq as a preventive action to deter a terrorist attack on America. This is flatly wrong.

"His rationalization for attacking Iraq, once accepted uncritically by most in Congress and the media easily intimidated by jingoism, now is known to be false. The bipartisan 9/11 commission selected by Bush concluded unanimously that there was no link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's secular dictatorship, al Qaeda's sworn enemy. And a recently declassified 2002 document proves that Bush's 'evidence' for this, available to top administration officials, was based on a single discredited witness.

"Clearly on the defensive, Bush now sounds increasingly Nixonian as he basically calls the majority of the country traitors for noticing he tricked us."

Josh Marshall says it's all about the echo chamber:

"There's one point that's important to remember about the White House's pushback to cover up its collective dishonesty about Iraq. We've noted before that in scandals or political nominations the decisive issue is not the number of opponents, the intensity of their opposition or even the quality of their arguments. The decisive issue is most often whether the scandalee or the nominee has some committed base of support, even if it only amounts to a distinct minority. . . .