US Diary: politics hotting up for November elections

1. What Are the Lieberman Foes For? -- by MATT BAI

A few days before Joe Lieberman, who was very nearly vice president of the United States, was effectively vanquished from his party by Ned Lamont, an affable cable executive who once played a minor role in governing the town of Greenwich, Conn., I happened to talk with Jeffrey Bell. A political consultant who is as cordial a man as you will find in Washington, Bell isn't as famous as some of his fellow Republicans, but he owns a storied place in the history of the conservative movement. A young aide to Ronald Reagan during his 1976 insurgency, Bell went on to challenge a sitting Republican senator, Clifford Case of New Jersey, in 1978. He stunned the political world by winning that race. And though he lost handily to the basketball legend Bill Bradley in the general election, just two years later Reagan ascended to the White House. If anyone was in a position, then, to assess the significance of the Connecticut rebellion, it was Bell, whose small but noteworthy victory over his party's confused establishment presaged a historic political realignment. ''It's tempting for us to underrate Dailykos and Moveon.org,'' Bell told me, referring to the Web pioneers who launched Lamont's improbable campaign. ''It's easy for us to say these guys are nuts. But the truth is, they're on the rise, and I think they're very impressive.''

There are, in fact, some compelling parallels between this moment in Democratic politics and the one that saw the ideological cleansing of the Republican ranks three decades ago. In ''Reagan's Revolution,'' an inside account of Reagan's failed 1976 campaign, Craig Shirley notes that aides to President Gerald Ford warned that they were ''in real danger of being outorganized by a small number of highly motivated right-wing nuts.'' Those so-called nuts, meanwhile, waged war on the then widely held belief that ''if they were to succeed, Republicans had to be 'pragmatic,' they had to 'broaden the base' and they had to 'compromise.' Otherwise, they would always be in the minority.'' The very same things might be written now, substituting the words ''left'' and ''Democratic'' for ''right'' and ''Republican.'' And like those bygone Republican leaders, establishment Democrats exhibit a surprisingly shallow understanding of the uprising that now threatens to engulf them.

In the aftermath of the primary, Democrats settled on the idea that Lieberman fell because of his support for the Iraq war. This was technically true, in the same way that a 95-year-old man might technically be said to die from pneumonia; there were, to say the least, underlying causes. The war was a galvanizing issue, but Lieberman's loss was just the first major victory for a larger grass-roots movement. While that movement is identified with young, online activists, it is populated largely by exasperated and ideologically disappointed baby boomers. These are the liberals who quietly seethed as Bill Clinton worked with Republicans to reform welfare and pass free-trade agreements. After the ''stolen'' election of 2000 and the subsequent loss of House and Senate seats in 2004, these Democrats felt duped. If triangulation wasn't a winning strategy, they asked, why were they ever asked to tolerate it in the first place? The Web gave them a place to share their frustrations, and Howard Dean gave them an icon.

Iraq has energized these older lapsed liberals; for a generation that got into politics marching against Vietnam, an antiwar movement is comfortable space. But it was the yearning for a more confrontational brand of opposition on all fronts, for something resembling the black-and-white moral choices of the 1960's, that more broadly animated Lamont's insurgency. Connecticut's primary showdown (which now appears to be headed for a sequel in November) marked an emphatic repudiation not just of the war but also of Clinton's ''third way'' governing philosophy - a philosophy not unlike the Republican ethos of ''compromise'' and ''pragmatism'' that so infuriated Reagan conservatives.

If history were to repeat itself, this outpouring of new liberal passion would portend trouble for the party's establishment candidates in 2008 (especially one possible candidate whose last name happens to be Clinton). But there is at least one crucial difference between insurgents of the 1970's and today. When Bell ran for the Senate in 1978, he was so obsessed with his plan to slash taxes that he went to the extraordinary length of bringing in Arthur Laffer, the renowned conservative economist, to draw his famous Laffer Curve at a news conference in Trenton. By contrast, Lamont's signature proposal as a primary candidate - and the only one anyone cared to hear, really - seemed to be the hard-to-dispute notion that he is not, in fact, Joe Lieberman. He offered platitudes about universal health care and good jobs and about bringing the troops home but nothing that might define him as anything other than what he is: an acceptable alternative.

Leaders of the Netroots, as the Internet activists have been named, will tell you that big ideas are way overrated in American politics - that you first have to master the business of getting elected before you can worry about how to govern. (Most powerful Democrats in Washington now believe this too.) But even with legions of outraged conservatives at his back, Reagan would not have taken over his party in 1980 - let alone the White House - had he not articulated an affirmative and bold argument against his party's status quo, vowing to devolve the federal government and roll back détente with the Soviets. Passion and fury started the revolution, but it took a leader with larger vision to finish the job.

(Matt Bai, a contributing writer who covers national politics for the magazine, is working on a book about Democratic Party politics.)



2. The YouTube Election
By RYAN LIZZA

AUGUST, usually the sleepiest month in politics, has suddenly become raucous, thanks in part to YouTube, the vast videosharing Web site.

Last week, Senator George Allen, the Virginia Republican, was caught on tape at a campaign event twice calling a college student of Indian descent a “macaca,” an obscure racial slur.

The student, working for the opposing campaign, taped the comments, and the video quickly appeared on YouTube, where it rocketed to the top of the site’s most-viewed list. It then bounced from the Web to the front page of The Washington Post to cable and network television news shows. Despite two public apologies by Senator Allen, and his aides’ quick explanations for how the strange word tumbled out, political analysts rushed to downgrade Mr. Allen’s stock as a leading contender for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

YouTube’s bite also hurt Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, who was defeated by the political upstart Ned Lamont in Connecticut’s Democratic primary earlier this month. In that contest, pro-Lamont bloggers frequently posted flattering interviews with their candidate on YouTube and unflattering video of Senator Lieberman. The Lamont campaign even hired a staffer, Tim Tagaris, to coordinate the activities of the bloggers and video bloggers.

In the real world, of course, neither Senator Lieberman nor Senator Allen is finished. Senator Lieberman, running as an independent, leads in recent polls. And Senator Allen, who said that he had meant no insult and that he did not know what macaca meant, is favored to win re-election against his Democratic opponent, James Webb. But the experience serves as a warning to politicians: Beware, the next stupid thing you say may be on YouTube.

When politicians say inappropriate things, many voters will want to know. Now they can see it for themselves on the Web.

But YouTube may be changing the political process in more profound ways, for good and perhaps not for the better, according to strategists in both parties. If campaigns resemble reality television, where any moment of a candidate’s life can be captured on film and posted on the Web, will the last shreds of authenticity be stripped from our public officials? Will candidates be pushed further into a scripted bubble? In short, will YouTube democratize politics, or destroy it?

YouTube didn’t even exist until 2005, but it now attracts some 20 million different visitors a month. In statements to the press, the company has been quick to take credit for radically altering the political ecosystem by opening up elections, allowing lesser known candidates to have a platform.

Some political analysts say that YouTube could force candidates to stop being so artificial, since they know their true personalities will come out anyway. “It will favor a kind of authenticity and directness and honesty that is frankly going to be good,” said Carter Eskew, a media consultant who worked for Senator Lieberman’s primary campaign. “People will say what they really think rather than what they think people want to hear.”

But others see a future where politicians are more vapid and risk averse than ever. Matthew Dowd, a longtime strategist for President Bush who is now a partner in a social networking Internet venture, Hot Soup, looks at the YouTube-ization of politics, and sees the death of spontaneity.

“Politicians can’t experiment with messages,” Mr. Dowd said. “They can’t get voter response. Seventy or 80 years ago, a politician could go give a speech in Des Moines and road-test some ideas and then refine it and then test it again in Milwaukee.”

He sees a future where candidates must be camera-ready before they hit the road, rather than be a work in progress. “What’s happened is that politicians now have to be perfect from Day 1,” he said. “It’s taken some richness out of the political discourse.”

Howard Wolfson, a senior adviser to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton , who is not known for her spontaneity, agrees.

“It is a continuation of a trend in which politicians have to assume they are on live TV all the time,” Mr. Wolfson said. “You can’t get away with making an offensive or dumb remark and assume it won’t get out.”

These rules have long applied to White House contenders, but the dynamic is getting stronger and moving down the ballot. “It used to be the kind of thing that was only true for presidents,” Mr. Wolfson said. “Now with the proliferation of technology it is increasingly true for many other politicians.”

But Mr. Wolfson, who recently led an effort by the Clinton camp to reach out to liberal bloggers hostile to his boss, believes that this trend has one advantage. “It does create more accountability and more democratization of information in the process,” he said.

The explosion of instant video may also put pressure on the news media. In the old days, the Allen video would not have been available for all to see. “Imagine this happened 10 years ago,” Mr. Wolfson said. “We had video and trackers then. But you had to get it to a TV station or newspaper. You had to persuade them to run a story on it. This allows you to avoid the middleman.”

And by doing so, avoid an arbiter, however flawed, of standards. “There’s no, ‘Is this the right thing for political discourse?’ ” Mr. Dowd said. “It’s just there.”

These days journalists are concerned not just about being cut out, but about being part of the show. Reporters often suffer the wrath of bloggers in the same way politicians do. At a recent conference of political bloggers in Las Vegas, reporters more than once reminded one another to be discreet in their conversations because anything overheard was fair game for bloggers to post.

Now, as the campaign trail turns into a 24-hour live set, members of the press corps may find themselves starring on YouTube. “At least one big-time journalist will have their career or life ruined because some element of their behavior that was heretofore private will be exposed publicly,” predicted a senior adviser to a potential 2008 presidential candidate. The adviser requested that his name not be used because he did not want his personal views to be taken for his boss’s.

Then again, YouTube’s impact on politics may be exaggerated. For one, the site’s users are generally young and not highly engaged politically.

“Most social networking sites cater to younger audiences, 18 to 24,” says Michael Bassik, vice president of Internet advertising at MSHC Partners, which advises candidates on media strategies. “For the most part, it’s not political conversations taking place there.”

And maybe the Allen video wasn’t all that shocking after all.

Jeff Jarvis, author of the BuzzMachine blog and an Internet consultant to The New York Times Company, doesn’t think all that much has changed.

“Is it news that politicians say stupid things?” he asks. “Of course not.”

(Ryan Lizza is a senior editor at The New Republic.)


3. Pundits Renounce The President
Among Conservative Voices, Discord
By Peter Baker (from The Washington Post)

For 10 minutes, the talk show host grilled his guests about whether "George Bush's mental weakness is damaging America's credibility at home and abroad." For 10 minutes, the caption across the bottom of the television screen read, "IS BUSH AN 'IDIOT'?"

But the host was no liberal media elitist. It was Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman turned MSNBC political pundit. And his answer to the captioned question was hardly "no." While other presidents have been called stupid, Scarborough said: "I think George Bush is in a league by himself. I don't think he has the intellectual depth as these other people."

These have been tough days politically for President Bush, what with his popularity numbers mired in the 30s and Republican candidates distancing themselves as elections near. He can no longer even rely as much on once-friendly voices in the conservative media to stand by his side, as some columnists and television commentators lose faith in his leadership and lose heart in the war in Iraq.

While most conservative media figures have not abandoned Bush, influential opinion-makers increasingly have raised questions, expressed doubts or attacked the president outright, particularly on foreign policy, on which he has long enjoyed their strongest support. In some cases, they have complained that Bush has drifted away from their shared principles; in other cases, they think it is the implementation that has fallen short. In most instances, Iraq figures prominently.

"Conservatives for a long time were in protective mode, wanting to emphasize the progress in Iraq to contrast what they felt was an unfair attack on the war by the Democrats and media and other sources," Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, said in an interview. "But there's more of a sense now that things are on a downward trajectory, and more of a willingness to acknowledge it and pressure the administration to react to it."

Lowry's magazine offers a powerful example. "It is time to say it unequivocally: We are winning in Iraq," Lowry wrote in April 2005, chastising those who disagreed. This month, he published an editorial that concluded that "success in Iraq seems more out of reach than it has at any time since the initial invasion three years ago" and assailed "the administration's on-again-off-again approach to Iraq."

"It is time for the Bush administration to acknowledge that its approach of assuring people that progress is being made and operating on that optimistic basis in Iraq isn't working," the editorial said. Lowry followed up days later in his own column, suggesting that the United States is "losing, or at least not obviously winning, a major war" and asking whether Iraq is "Bush's Vietnam."

Quin Hillyer, executive editor of the American Spectator, cited Lowry's column in his own last week, writing that many are upset "because we seem not to be winning" and urging the White House to take on militia leaders such as Moqtada al-Sadr. Until it does, he said, "there will be no way for the administration to credibly claim that victory in Iraq is achievable, much less imminent."

Bush aides were bothered by a George F. Will column last week mocking neoconservative desires to transform the Middle East: "Foreign policy 'realists' considered Middle East stability the goal. The realists' critics, who regard realism as reprehensibly unambitious, considered stability the problem. That problem has been solved."

The White House responded with a 2,432-word rebuttal -- three times as long as the column -- e-mailed to supporters and journalists. "Mr. Will's kind of 'stability' and 'realism' -- a kind of world-weary belief that nothing can be done and so nothing should be tried -- would eventually lead to death and destruction on a scale that is almost unimaginable," wrote White House strategic initiatives director Peter H. Wehner.

Bush advisers said that they never counted Will or some others now voicing criticism as strong supporters but that the president's political weakness has encouraged soft supporters and quiet skeptics to speak out.

William F. Buckley Jr., the founder of the National Review and an icon of the Ronald Reagan-era conservative movement, caused a stir earlier this year when he wrote that "our mission has failed" in Iraq -- just a few months after Bush hosted a White House tribute to Buckley's 80th birthday and the magazine's 50th anniversary.

Thomas L. Friedman, a New York Times columnist who is not a conservative but has strongly backed the Iraq war, reversed course this month, writing that " 'staying the course' is pointless, and it's time to start thinking about Plan B -- how we might disengage with the least damage possible."

White House spokesman Tony Snow said the second-guessing was predictable, given the difficulties in Iraq. "It's hardly unusual in times of war that people get anxious, and that would include people who have supported the president," he said. "The president understands that and is not fazed by it."

Snow said much of the frustration articulated by conservatives stems from a desire to accomplish Bush's ambitions. "The good thing is they all have the same goal: They all want to win the war on terror," he said. "You don't have people quibbling over the goals; they're quibbling over the means -- or 'quibbling' is the wrong word. 'Debating.' "

Snow, who hosted a Fox radio talk show before joining the White House this spring, has made an effort to reach out to conservative audiences by appearing on his former competitors' programs, including shows hosted by Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. "We're certainly more engaged on that front," he said.

And some of the president's neoconservative supporters have fired back on his behalf. Norman Podhoretz, editor-at-large of Commentary magazine, wrote an 11,525-word essay this month rebutting not only Will, Buckley and other traditional conservatives but also fellow neoconservatives who "have now taken to composing obituary notices of their own." He noted that he had been a tough critic of Reagan for betraying conservative values, only to later conclude that Reagan's approach served "an overall strategy that in the end succeeded in attaining its great objective."

Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard and a reliable Bush supporter, said the disillusionment is not surprising. "People get weary, especially when they expected a war to be over very quickly," he said in an interview. "Supporters fall off over time. I've been disappointed by some of the people who have fallen off, like George Will, but that's what happens."

Few have struck a nerve more than Scarborough, who questioned the president's intelligence on his show, "Scarborough Country." He showed a montage of clips of Bush's famously inarticulate verbal miscues and then explored with guests John Fund and Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. whether Bush is smart enough to be president.

While the country does not want a leader wallowing in the weeds, Scarborough concluded on the segment, "we do need a president who, I think, is intellectually curious."

"And that is a big question," Scarborough said, "whether George W. Bush has the intellectual curiousness -- if that's a word -- to continue leading this country over the next couple of years."

In a later telephone interview, Scarborough said he aired the segment because he kept hearing even fellow Republicans questioning Bush's capacity and leadership, particularly in Iraq. Like others, he said, he supported the war but now thinks it is time to find a way to get out. "A lot of conservatives are saying, 'Enough's enough,' " he said. Asked about the reaction to his program, he said, "The White House is not happy about it."


4. WHITE HOUSE WATCH
Analyze Diss
by Ryan Lizza

It's not too much to say that Representative Mark Kennedy owes his political career to George W. Bush. When the Minneapolis corporate executive left the boardroom to embark on a quixotic bid for Congress in 2000, Bush's coattails carried him to a 155-vote victory. Once ensconced in Washington, Kennedy thrived as a Bush conservative in the salad days of post-September 11 GOP dominance. His fealty to the president was repaid in 2002 with the ultimate campaign gift: footage of Kennedy and Bush walking solemnly down the White House colonnade as the young congressman imparted some inaudible wisdom to the commander-in-chief. A Kennedy campaign ad that fall featured the scene with the voiceover, "I'm Congressman Mark Kennedy. I've stood with President Bush on the war against terrorism." It worked. Initially considered vulnerable, Kennedy won the race with a knockout 57 to 35 percent. In 2004, Bush's coattails helped lift Kennedy to victory once more. Bush won the district with 57 percent of the vote, his best showing in the state, while Kennedy lagged behind with 54 percent.

But those coattails have gotten an awful lot shorter in the last two years. Today, Kennedy is running like a candidate trying to shake off a disreputable past--in this case, one as a Bush Republican. And he's not alone. The districts and states that represent the best pick-up opportunities for Democrats, almost by definition, are the ones where Bush fatigue is strongest. So, after three elections of embracing Bush, GOP candidates across the country are facing a new challenge: perfecting the art of dissing Bush.

Flip on the tube in Minnesota these days and you'll meet the new Mark Kennedy, now running for the U.S. Senate. His latest campaign commercial features not Bush but Kennedy's mom. And Kennedy's dad. And Kennedy's three brothers. And Kennedy's wife. And Kennedy's four children. And Kennedy's dead ancestors (pictures of them, anyway). Rather than reminding voters of his experience serving in the House during six of the most consequential years in American history, Kennedy explains to Minnesotans that he's a certified public accountant.

Banished are any mentions of the president, the war on terrorism, or the GOP. Instead, the ad features a shot of Kennedy dressed ridiculously in a birthday hat and party blower to emphasize his daughter's on-camera testimony that he's "just not much of a party guy" and "doesn't do whatever the party says to." (She's right, though only barely: Kennedy opposed Bush's position only 8 percent of the time since coming to Washington.) When a reporter recently asked Kennedy why the scrupulously nonpartisan Congressional Quarterly described him as a "loyal Bush supporter," Kennedy seemed to regard the phrase as a political smear: "The attack on me is that I'm a lap dog of the president.... To have an organization as reputable as CQ fall into that trap, I just don't know."

Missouri Senator Jim Talent is also unveiling a newfound independent streak. Running in a special election in 2002, Talent had done Kennedy one better, scoring not only footage from the president but audio, too. "The best person running for the United States Senate is Jim Talent," Bush announced in a campaign ad. "The man doesn't need a focus group or a poll to tell him what to say." Perhaps. Though it seems that the GOP's cratering polls may have something to do with the new tack Talent is trying out for his reelection race. Bush is out, as is partisanship in all its forms. "Most people don't care if you're red or blue, Republican or Democrat," declares a new Talent ad, wishfully. In a "director's commentary" about the spot (I kid you not) that the senator provides on his website, he brags of passing legislation with Democrats including Chris Dodd, Charles Schumer, and Dianne Feinstein. No mention of the guy who signed it all into law.

Dissing Bush can be trickier than it might seem at first. There is, after all, the little matter of fund-raising, where the president, despite his sagging popularity, is still the party heavyweight. The trick for vulnerable GOP candidates is to somehow get Bush money without being in any way associated with Bush or the other radioactive members of his administration--a predicament that is tying Republicans into pretzels from coast to coast. The most common maneuver is for candidates to invent excuses to arrive late at their own fundraisers--or not at all. In March, New Jersey Senate candidate Tom Kean conveniently showed up at a buck-raking event in Newark just moments after the vice president had departed. His explanation? He was stuck in traffic. Virginia House member Thelma Drake was more creative. In May, when Bush dropped into Virginia Beach to raise $500,000 for her campaign, she didn't bother to show up at all. How could she, after all, when her vote was needed in Washington on a critical piece of legislation? (The bill in question passed 395-0.) Washington Senate candidate Mike McGavick at least had the decency to come up with an unimpeachable scheduling conflict when Bush showed up in the Seattle suburbs for a GOP fund-raiser: He was attending his son's high school graduation in Pennsylvania.

But no good trick lasts forever. Skipping out on fundraisers when Bush is in town became a common enough practice that Democrats started pointing out the ploy in local media outlets, making it more trouble than it was worth. The solution some candidates have landed on is to endure the shame of sharing a stage with the president of the United States and, after he leaves, to criticize him subtly but pointedly. House candidates Rick O'Donnell of Colorado and Heather Wilson of New Mexico have taken this course, smiling alongside Bush as he collects campaign checks for them one day and running ads trumpeting their willingness to defy Republican leaders in Washington the next.

For some, the best approach may be simply to ask Bush to stay away. When the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently unearthed the fact that Bush would be raising dough for David Reichert, who represents an increasingly Democratic district in Washington state, the news generated a wave of negative coverage about his coziness with the White House. When Reichert joined the pariah-in-chief at the event anyway, it seemed to do him more harm than good: The visit pumped anti-Bush money into the coffers of his opponent, who ended up out-raising him for the quarter. Indeed, the event provided so much fodder to tie Reichert to Bush that it's widely seen as the reason Reichert reversed his position on stem-cell research last month.

Given that 55 to 60 percent of Americans believe the president is doing a bad job, Bush-bashing is a surprisingly flexible tool, able to woo constituencies from across the ideological spectrum. While Mark Kennedy disses the president in order to win over fussy Minnesota independents, other Republicans badmouth Bush to woo conservatives angry about his immigration plan. Pennsylvania Representative Jim Gerlach tried this approach in a recent ad, explaining, "The president wants a guest-worker program that may lead to amnesty for illegal immigrants. That's sending the wrong message at the wrong time." Arizona's J.D. Hayworth has embraced this line in his latest book, complaining that Bush is "disturbingly vague and indecisive" on immigration.

In New England, by contrast, Bush-bashing is all about courting liberal voters. From the endangered Republicans in Connecticut to the GOP candidate for an open seat in Vermont, publicly breaking with the president is not so much a stunt as a way of life. Connecticut Representative Chris Shays has accused the Bush administration of hiding the costs of the war in Iraq and blasted the president for his stem-cell veto--and that's just in the last few weeks. Meanwhile, up in Vermont, part of what The Washington Post recently dubbed the "impeachment belt"--because of the region's enthusiasm for kicking Bush out of office--House candidate Martha Rainville told a reporter that the president's "time is better spent on other things" than visiting the state.

That may not be a terribly surprising statement coming from a Republican running for the seat vacated by socialist Bernie Sanders. What is surprising about this year's orgy of GOP Bush-bashing is how manufactured and artificial it all is. On the surface, the revolt against the president suggests that the storied discipline of his political machine has broken down. In fact, it means nothing of the kind: By instructing candidates to "localize" their races as much as possible, the party committees have essentially green-lighted the presidential diss as a campaign strategy. Which raises an interesting possibility: After six years of futile attempts by Democrats, could it be that Republicans are the ones who have finally figured out how to win elections by bashing Bush?

(Ryan Lizza is a senior editor at The New Republic.)


5. Dick Cheney: Malignancy on the American Polity -- by Theo Stein

That Dick Cheney says the darndest things.

Armed with insider info that the British were about to bust up a terror plot, Cheney leapt to the defense of Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., in a rare conference call with reporters.

Those who voted for Lieberman's challenger were giving "al-Qaida types" aid and comfort, Cheney said.

The White House and Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman quickly moved in lock-step to claim that the entire Democratic Party shared the motives of restive Connecticut primary voters who gave Ned Lamont a close victory.

Yet White House aides later insisted that neither Cheney nor anyone else was trying to exploit the British success for partisan advantage.

Right. If it walks like a skunk and waves its fanny in the air before spraying stink, it's a skunk. Even if it goes by the title of vice president.

The Bush administration has routinely designated Cheney to attack its perceived enemies, and rarely does the man disappoint.

But this time, the once-respectable congressman from Wyoming has sunk to a new low.

Not that astounding acts of political chutzpa are foreign territory for Cheney. Recall that the former Haliburton CEO attached himself to the Bush candidacy as an adviser vetting potential vice-presidential candidates before anointing himself to the post.

Since then, Cheney has relentlessly tried to expand the power of the presidency, using questionable theories of constitutional power in an attempt to relegate Congress and the courts to the sideline.

Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, rebuked the plotters in Cheney's ambit. Even if Cheney's gang hasn't figured out a way around Hamdan yet, they sure know how to perfume the air in campaign season.

There's absolutely no reason for any thinking person to be confident that the United States is safer than it was on Sept. 10, 2001.

The preemptive strike on Iraq and the abject, even criminal, failure to plan for that country's stability has turned Iraq into a global recruiting center for Islamic terrorists.

Into the regional power vacuum has stepped Iran, which is encouraging Iraqi Shiite death squads, Hezbollah, Hamas and anyone else who can divert American attention from the Iranian march toward nuclear weapons capability.

Lest we forget, the Middle East instability uncorked by our bungling in Iraq has added a significant risk premium to each barrel of oil, helping the mullahs and hurting ordinary Americans.

Meanwhile, five years after 9/11, the administration and its enablers have failed to pass meaningful legislation to protect our ports or our vulnerable chemical plants. They've neglected to push for bomb detectors able to sniff out the kind of liquid explosives identified as part of a 1995 al-Qaida plot to bomb airliners over the Pacific.

And they've decided that the Constitution shouldn't apply to the president so long as we're engaged in the War on Terror.

You'd almost think they're hoping for another attack before November to completely frighten voters out of their sensibilities. (But they've done a fine job cutting taxes for the wealthy, haven't they?)

One can only hope that Americans will finally reject this remarkably shameless politicization of war.

There's some evidence that even the most partisan Republicans now perceive the vapidity of the false choice between "stay the course" and "cut and run."

Exhibit A: RNC chair Mehlman test-drove the administration's new catch phrase, "adapt to win," during a Sunday appearance on "Meet the Press."

Except that, according to those on the ground in Iraq who are not tied at the brain to the administration's failed approach, U.S. leaders' irrationally rosy views are preventing the military from either adapting or winning.

"I think that the greatest problem that we deal (besides the insurgents and militia) with is that our leadership has no real comprehension of the ground truth," an unidentified military officer told reporter Tom Lasseter of McClatchey Newspapers. "Many have been surprised at what I have to say, but I suspect that in the end nothing will or has changed."

How many more Americans and Iraqis will die because of this administration's hubris?

Don't think about that. Think about the "Defeatocrats."

Yes, it's all the Democrats fault. Cheney wants you to believe they're all against the war.

Actually, a good number of Democrats supported the war, just not the abominable, immoral hash that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al., have made of it.

But God forbid any of us question them.

(Theo Stein is an editorial writer for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram and can be contacted at 207-791-6481 or: tstein@pressherald.com)