Where are the protests? Bush is preparing to escalate a failed war of conquest, and all we hear is faint mutterings from the "opposition" party, a party terrified of offending our sacred military. There are no large protests against the war, because the war was hugely popular when it looked like a romp on TV. America kicking ass in Iraq was prime-time entertainment for America when it looked like easy payback for 9/11.
Now that the war has turned sour, nobody wants to remember what fun they had cheering on our dashing armored forces as they raced toward Baghdad with their excited "embedded" reporter/propagandists. That is why the dominant element in American politics today is guilty silence, the American people are silently contemplating the foul swamp of folly and misery into which they have fallen.
The commercial media are paid to read the mood of the public herd, and that is why they are still talking up the "surge" as a legitimate escalation option. They understand that it is idiocy, but they know that, because the public feels complicit in the war, any last chance option will be embraced - because it delays the final accounting.