A Swift Swift Boating

Well, that was quick. Seems the bunkered-down White House is back to taking orders from Admiral Rove in its retaliation against that extreme leftist, Congressman John Murtha. Salon's War Room has the goods:

You know the White House is getting desperate when it tries to play the Michael Moore card on a Vietnam veteran and ex-Marine long regarded as a staunch conservative Democrat. In response to Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha's speech on Thursday calling for an expedited withdrawal of troops from Iraq, the press secretary's office released a terse statement accusing Murtha of "endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party."

Them's fighting words! But the funny thing is, listening to Murtha speak on the "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" last night, he did sound remarkably like someone who could have received prominent placement in "Farenheit 9/11."

"This is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion," said Murtha, referring to the war in Iraq. "From the very start, they said the oil production would pay for any rehabilitation. It would only cost us a few billion dollars, that there would be a big coalition supporting us, and we'd get all kinds of money from everybody else. They expected to be able to do this with a lot less troops. They thought they'd have only 40,000 or 50,000 troops the first year ... But the president said a lot of things, and they turned out not to be true. The president said there are weapons of mass destruction. The president said oil would pay for it. The president cut taxes at a time when we're in a war."

So, much as War Room hates to admit it, Scott McClellan might be right on this one -- there is something reminiscent of Moore in the air today. And while we're feeling so forgiving, let's hand out the olive branch to the president and vice president too. They're also right: The Democratic politicians who are suddenly coming out en masse against the war are playing politics -- engaging in the same kind of timid, watch-the-weathervane strategy that helped get us all in this mess in the first place. When polls suggested the American public supported the war, they voted for it. Now it's a different story. The president's poll numbers get weaker every week, and surprise, surprise, Democratic politicians get braver and braver.

The post ends with reaction from Michael Moore to his name being used in vain:

"Unfortunately, the President doesn't understand that it is mainstream middle America who has turned against him and his immoral war and that it is I and the Democrats who represent the mainstream. It is Mr. Bush who is the extremist."

Indeed, EJ Dionne over at the WaPo notes this in his column from today:

The growing nervousness in Bush's own party is a reaction to more than just short-term poll numbers. What's most striking and little noticed in the recent surveys is that even among the war's supporters, enthusiasm has waned. Intensity is on the side of the war's opponents.

In the most recent Washington Post/ABC News Poll -- conducted from Oct. 30 to Nov. 2 -- 39 percent of Americans said the war in Iraq had been worth fighting, while 60 percent said it was not. But only 25 percent said they felt "strongly" that the war was worth it, while 48 percent felt strongly that it was not. The findings on the strength of feelings about the war were matched by the intensity of feelings about Bush himself: Only 20 percent of those surveyed said they strongly approved of the overall job Bush was doing, while 47 percent strongly disapproved. A president who has always played to his base finds that his base is steadily shrinking.

This helps explain the White House's furious assault against Democrats for questioning the administration's use of intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. If nothing else, Bush wants to get Republican partisans back in line.
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If the administration cares more about the long-term outcome in Iraq than short-term maneuvering to punch up its polling numbers, it will pay attention to Murtha's defection and the Senate's warnings. Like it or not, Bush doesn't have much time to arrange a decent result. The administration will lose its Iraqi bet altogether if it fails to deal with this reality. The president's problem is not with partisan or dovish Democrats but with members of his own party, with dispirited hawks and with loyalists who are losing heart. They need to believe Bush has a plausible approach to the endgame. As of now, they don't.