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Mr. Lowry: I want to commend you on a candid and cogent piece…The only thing about that comment that you may find surprising is the fact that I am very far to the left of you politically, and hardly agree with anything that you write. You were quite correct in your assertion of the fact that the Democrats exhibit political cowardice in their refusal to admit that they believe the war is lost, but frankly lack of political courage to take a stand that may prove unpopular is hardly a partisan issue. I will also admit what very few on the left are willing to admit, that Bush’s stand at this point does take political courage (although less so for a lame-duck politician who is unlikely to run for public office in the future). The one question I have that I cannot get anyone who supports the President’s Iraq policy to answer is this: Given that every prediction and characterization of this war by the administration and its supporters has proven to be inaccurate, and every strategy ineffective, why should we believe anything they tell us now, and why should we have any confidence that their new strategy will be successful? Do you really believe that this supposed “strategy” is going to be anything other than a profound desire by the administration to pass this debacle on to the next occupant of the white house so that the “failure” of their Iraq adventure happens on someone else’s watch?

ME: That raises a good point and is why I don’t expect Bush to have a lot of success selling the surge. He might bump up support for it some, just because it is a change of course (although probably not the one most people had in mind). But I imagine the bulk of the public will be skeptical or opposed until they see some results on the ground. That is going to take time. We probably can’t as a practical matter start the new clear-and-hold strategy in Baghdad until the spring, and it’s possible that the terrorists will ratchet up the violence when we do. This will set up the opponents of the war nicely to argue, “See–your last ditch surge didn’t work either.” So Republicans are entering a period of even further political peril here. Any upside–assuming the surge eventually works–will probably only come a year from now.

On Bush trying to fob the war off on some other president, I think that’s absurd. His sincerity on the question is absolute. He wants to win, and believes we still can.

Finally, a point I didn’t deal with in the column is that it is possible to believe the war is lost, but that we still can’t pull out right away because that will make thing even worse. So we have to keep losing slowly. But I think many Democrats think the war is lost and we should get out right away and the only thing keeping them from being forthright about it is political calculation.

As a compromise, Democrats are playing with denying funds for the surge. It’s going to be hard, however, to justify funding 140,000 troops in Iraq, but not sending them the reinforcements they need. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of Democrats slide pretty quickly all the way over to trying to cut funding for all the troops.