Buying a Skunk

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=105154&f=19

It looks like Congress is about out of tricks to "bring the war to a responsible close" or whatever the current triangulated phrase is. That said, for some time now I have been of the mind that the Dems do not from a poltical standpoint want to force any substantive changes.

Kevin Drum made the very smart point last week that the last thing the Dems want to do is set themselves up to have any culpability for this fuck up and particularly any deterioration of the situation in the future (a point Lindsey Graham alluded to when he noted that "Repubs own this war... And there may be consequences to that" today).

Sure it is disguisting to use soldiers lives as political props, but if one side is willing to do it you do not really have a choice. Politics is chess, not checkers.