Despite surge PR, a record number want out

If Dems won't stand for what they believe in, on an issue in which they have 60 percent of the American people, what will they stand for?

A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday and Saturday finds that a White House push to spotlight progress in Iraq, including President Bush's surprise stop in Anbar province last week, hasn't fundamentally changed attitudes toward the war.

While a third of those surveyed say the "surge" of U.S. troops this year has made them more confident the United States will accomplish its goals, a majority calls the invasion a mistake and predicts the war will be lost.

A record 60% say the United States should set a timetable to withdraw forces "and stick to that timetable regardless of what is going on in Iraq."

Hear that Congress? That's not "ask Bush to perhaps make plans if he feels like it".

That's not "maybe we'll set a start deadline, but not worry about an end one."

That's not "give Bush his $200 billion and lots more war because if we don't, Republicans and David Broder might criticize us!"

That's not, "let's compromise on the issue and find 'common ground' were none exists."

That's not, "pass a bill, any bill, so long as it gets some Republican support."

That's not, "what can we do, the president will just veto it!"

That's not, "but the Washington Post might say something mean about us!"

That's not, "let's give them another Friedman Unit and another 600 dead G.I.s and another $100 billion down the tube" to see if maybe this time everyone gets their ponies.

That's not, "but 'supporting the troops' means keeping them in the Iraq meat grinder, rather than home, safe and sound with their families!"

MORE people, not less, think we need to get the f' out of Iraq even after the PR offensive they've waged to change public perception. Yet Democrats are acting defeated before Petreaus even gives his report. (And btw, where the heck is Obama? Still AWOL?)

And Republicans? They're baffled at the seeming preemptive surrender of the Democratic Party. Witness John McCain:

Now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is trying a new approach: He wants to find common ground.

"We're working on consensus," Reid said. "We're willing to go halfway with [Republicans] as long as everyone understands that we're not going to do something that's cosmetic in nature."

Some Republicans, like presidential candidate John McCain, say Reid is talking with Republicans only because Democrats are losing the war of public opinion.

"They've lost the momentum," McCain said. "Otherwise, they wouldn't want to sit down with Republicans and negotiate a different resolution."

He's right. Democrats are talking as though they've lost the war of public opinion. Except that Democrats aren't. They're winning it.

Yet they talk like losers.

60 percent agree with a hardline position in this debate, yet Democrats -- who won in 2006 on  platform of ending the war in Iraq -- are talking like losers before the debate is even engaged.