slow-motion crash, or self-immolation, or something
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/story?id=156238
So we only gingerly enter into the waiting minefield as we write: the
outcome of the 2006 midterm election is likely being determined in
the next 48 hours — not so much on the floor of the Senate as in how
the two parties spin, shape, and echo what happens on that floor.
Democrats can deny it all they want (and not all do. . .), but they
are on the precipice of self-immolating over the issue that has most
crippled the Bush presidency and of making facts on the ground
virtually meaningless. In other words, they are on the precipice of
making Iraq a 2006 political winner for the Republican Party.
We write with elliptical certainty and precision that Mitch
McConnell, Chuck Schumer, and Ken Mehlman share the exact same view
of Chris Dodd’s eyebrow. (If you don’t know what that means, get
thyself to the day’s only true must read — Kate Zernike’s extended
imitation of Mark Leibovich on the front page of the New York Times
on how Sen. Kerry is doing with his colleagues on Iraq. LINK
If you want to know what makes Mehlman laugh besides the Zernike
story and Dodd’s eyebrow, read Joseph Williams of the Boston Globe,
who examines the term “cut and run,” and how it is being used by the
GOP as a linguistic weapon against Democrats in the Iraq war debate.
LINK
If the Democrats can’t make cable TV bookers and Washington
assignment editors feel there is a dime’s worth of difference between
something called “Levin” and something called “Kerry,” our guess is
that the American people won’t see much of a difference between those
options when they pull their levers (or punch their chads, or
whatever) come November. Remember our rule from yesterday, which we
paraphrase here: if you have to deny your non-binding resolution
amounts to “cut and run,” you are losing the battle (and the war —
but not that war).
The slow motion car crash begins, sometime after 11:00 am ET, when
Sen. Levin is expected to bring up his amendment on Iraq with up to
five hours of debate to follow. Then Sen. Kerry will likely offer his
amendment on Iraq with debate to follow.