The Iraq Campaign

What dire circumstances. What a sensible time for the country to find a use for the political opposition. The morning after the President's speech it feels like campaign season all over again.

As always, I encourage politically curious citizens to start with ABC News' The Note. They are right to look at the decisions (many of them bad decisions) being made in the White House as the work of human beings. They're not villains, they are people. For me, this perspective is critical to grasping the forces shaping this Administration's policies.

Under the normal rules of politics, a president who has a determined and united congressional majority against him; public opinion against him; and many prominent voices in his own party against him, would look for a political way out -- but George W. Bush plays by different rules. He isn't up for re-election; he doesn't care about the polls; he does not seem to care about the long-term politial hopes of his party, such as if Sens. Coleman or Sununu have tough re-election fights; and he doesn't care if relentless pursuit of his Iraq goals crushes whatever chance he has of achieving anything else in the last two years of his presidency.