IRAQ TURNING POINT?

"Virtually all of the arguments the White House is now advancing are transparently ridiculous on their face to anyone who has closely followed this evolving debate over the last three years.

"But that doesn't matter. The White House doesn't need to win any debates. What they need is for their core supporters to have something to say. Anything. And to be able to say it loudly. The one thing that would be fatal for the White House from its defenders would be silence."

Roger Simon explains the Dem dynamic:

"Some of those Democrats who voted to authorize Bush to use force in Iraq in the first place were simply afraid they would look weak and unpatriotic if they did not.

"And while Howard Dean vocally denounced the war, in the end all the leading Democratic contenders for president - - Dean, John Kerry and John Edwards - - supported staying the course in Iraq.

"But that was then. Now, there is something of a scramble within the Democratic party to bring the boys and girls home.

"Senators Edward Kennedy, Russ Feingold, and Kerry all support withdrawing troops from Iraq, and Edwards says flatly that he was wrong in supporting the war in the first place."

On the Woodward front, former magazine editor Richard Bradley questions his modus operandi:

"Set aside for the moment the question of whether it's appropriate for Woodward to publicly comment on a story he's in the middle of reporting. (Answer: It isn't.)

"Why would Woodward go out of his way to trash Fitzgerald, who could be an important source for him? That's an excellent way to guarantee permanent non-cooperation.

"Woodward must have felt that he had nothing to lose . . . which means that he already knew that Fitzgerald wouldn't talk to him. Not in the present, and not in the future. Which only makes you admire Fitzgerald more and Woodward less."

The blogger known as Digby says one reporter got it right: