The first thing that has to be clarified is that "in favor of the war" is a loose concept.

For example, there are people who think we never should have invaded and should shut it down now. This has been the position of most of the Democratic leadership for several years, and is the position of the two Democratic candidates, particularly Obama.

There are also people who think we never should have invaded, but now that we have, we need to win. There are a lot of liberals like this. You might be surprised how many conservatives, too. Jerry Pournelle is one. I have no problem with people who think like this. They can think Bush is the biggest piece of crap ever to float up from the Great Political Toilet Bowl, but still be happy when things are going well over there.

And there are those who think that things would be worse over there now if we hadn't invaded, and still want to win.

I tend to swing somewhere between the last two, but lean toward the latter.

Not a major comment, just pointing it out.

I just wonder why the Democrats haven't taken more credit for the successes in Iraq, a prospect which I know will precipitate mass internal flatulence amongst the Right side of this board. To be fair, the Left did not turn this war around, they just got the Right to stop stepping on their dick long enough for the professionals to take over.

I don't know if calling this statement utterly absurd qualifies as "flatulence." The Left had nothing to do with the tactical changes over there.

The Democrats spent the past few years attempting to wreck the war effort on several fronts, particularly once they won in 2006, and did their damnedest to stop the surge. They attacked Petraeus at every opportunity, and were screaming about the surge's "failure," as recently as last month during the Sadr uprisings. During all that time, it was called the "Bush surge," which was true, but it was held up as the latest example of his incompetence. Go back and look at the papers.

You would think it would be utterly impossible for the American Left, which has been totally invested in Iraq's failure for years, to walk itself back from that, wouldn't you? But you're the second person just on this board alone raising that incredible idea.

Still, given past experience, I suspect that in ten years "history" will write the surge down as Nancy Pelosi's greatest idea. So it goes.