Laura Rozen calls attention to a good passage from today's uber-insider
Nelson Report:
...The specifics of the fight revolve around Chairman Pat Robert's continued refusal to hold more hearings, and issue a Part 2 report on the Iraq war intel controversy which formed the background for the indictment last week of Vice Presidential Cheney aide "Scooter" Libby. On Friday, Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald warned both sides that he would NOT be bringing charges in such a way as to reach conclusions on the Iraq intel itself. However, many analysts think that IF Libby decides to risk an open trial, testimony from Cheney and other top staff might inevitably boil down to an examination of the both the intel, and the uses and misuses to which it was put.
Today's move by Senate Democratic Minority Leader Reid should be seen as an opening salvo in a renewed effort to bring out into the open the magnitude of what critics and supporters alike see as the systematic failure of intel pre and post-war...and which, some charge, should be seen as a conspiracy by senior Bush Administration officials who were aware that the intel did not support their arguments....e.g. the Niger intel in the State of the Union address which led directly to the Libby indictment.
Obviously, the political stakes in such a debate...and such a fight...are of the highest, and if "accountability" takes hold with the public, would carry over into general public attitudes about which party to support in the 2006 "off year" elections, and likely which candidates to support for President in 2008. ...
Obviously, as a partisan Democrat, I hope this desire for "accountability" on Iraq helps us win more seats in the House and Senate in 2006, and I think it will. But what about 2008? In general, I'd say, advantage Dems. But there may be caveats, in particular if Republicans run a "realist" candiate like Chuck Hagel.
I also think that Hillary Clinton's continued insistance that invading Iraq was the right decision -- just that the Bush administration did it incompetently and a Democratic administration would have done it better, is going to hurt her. Even if a large part of the Clinton era "strategic class" continues to believe, like the neoconservatives, that an American-driven "transformation" of the Middle East is the solution to our problems with the region, the bulk of public opinion doesn't seem to be going along, and revelations about the "bait and switch" likely used to sell the war to the public won't help.
It's time for some new thinking, and new blood, in the Democratic party...
Crossposted from by blog, RealistDem.