1 The new government is pro-Iranian, ridden with
private militias, will not recognize Israel,
has put women back in the veil, and only controls the Green Zone. Some victory. But you don't have to ask a Leftist. Ask Bill Buckley, George Will, Pat Buchanan.

2 I could care less about the opinions of the two elitists and the neo-Nazi.

3 Considering that the old government was rabidly anti-American and defiant of the world community, riddled with fascist torturing monsters, would not recognize Israel, murdered tens if not hundreds of thousands for the sin of not being Ba'athist and/or loyal to Saddam, and controlled virtually all the country by dint of the credible threat (because they'd shown that they would do it) of the use of chemical weapons against entire villages, I have a hard time being depressed about this development...

4 How many posts go unfulfilled for months -- sometimes years -- in a typical American administration?

If anything, this article is 'marred' by yet another clumsey attempt at shoehorning everything happening in Iraq into a predetermined, politically-compromised narrative.

5 If you don't care about conservatives who are not in denial how about Rumsfeld himself, projecting
a 5 year insurgency a few weeks ago, in one of his more truthful moments. Let's see, 5 years,
US losses come to 10,000 lives,50,000 maimed
for life if it stays.
Hussein committed the majority of his atrocities when he was "our" man doing "our" bidding,as when he attacked Iran with "our" help.

Buchanan isn't a neo-Nazi;he just doesn't believe
Israel should control our Congress and our
Mideast policy.Unlike Bush, Buchanan wouldn't
sell you out on immigration,either....

But continue on--you represent the app.
30% of remaining Bush true believers. Nixon
had his in-denial defenders too, all the way to
the end.And the end for the Iraq War,and Bush,
will not be favorable.

6 I also don't care about liberal anti-Semites throing out the Jewish dual-loyalty canard and the "Israel controls Congress" lie.

Nor do I care about anyone who argues that right and wrong are determined by public opinion polls.

7 You SHOULD care about extemely negative poll results,even by your own lights. It restrains Bush (thank God) from things like doubling troop strength in Iraq,(which many, including McCain and Biden,say is necessary to "win"-
not that I believe winning is possible under any circumstances) & the polls restrain Bush from widening the conflict to include Iran.

Of course many stubborn Bush holdouts are also
chickenhawks who risked nothing in former
wars and who believe they risk nothing in an aggresively interventionist Mideast policy. To implement Bush's goals in the Mideast will take a draft,however. Then the polls will make hawkish
"protect Israel" views even more unworkable-not to mention unrest in the streets, Vietnam redux.

8 We must be winning in Iraq, because the MSM is now largely ignoring the news that is happening there. Time Magazine's May 15 print edition (US) - the issue that came out following the publicizing of the captured al Qaeda memo (in which an AQ commander acknowledges that AQ in Iraq is losing) -- contained not a single story about events in Iraq.

The formation of the Iraqi government won't be represented by a compelling symbol, such as a woman in traditional garb proudly displaying her purpled finger, so don't expect to hear about much other than the IED of the Day and how the continued violence proves that the invasion was a mistake.

The omission says quite a lot about the agenda of Time's editors, and we can infer from the omission quite a lot about how things are going in Iraq. Because of the sad state of the MSM in general and Time in particular, this is really a case of no news is good news.

9 Ken, negative poll results are only meaningful when the poll is an election. Media polls vary widely in quality of presentation of questions and are subject to different interpretations. Low approval ratings for Bush suggest:

1) The Left still hates him. That's probably about 30-35% of respondents. Good. I would worry if the Left didn't still hate him.

2) The right, maybe another 30-35% is still disappointed that Bush isn't as conservative as they are. Still good, but not for the same reasons as no. 1. Many conservative ideas are good (in contrast, most of what passes for "ideas" on the left are actually emotional responses, rather than rational thought), but a president who tried to implement a fully conservative agenda probably would fail to accomplish anything. Bush mostly understands the "pick your battles" admonition. He doesn't always win those he picks (social security reform, for example), but his batting average is pretty high 2 supreme court justices confirmed; and because he hasn't gone wobbly, we've won in Iraq -- something that isn't yet apparent to those getting news from the MSM, but it will be before too long.

3. The undecided or apathetic center is not supportive. BFD. You can't always get what you want, and this group, if it's considered a "group," doesn't even know what it wants. It doesn't get unified except by a crisis. We haven't seen it here in a long time, but let's not forget that demagoguery can rally a generally disatisfied center. Fortunately, our economy isn't likely to perform poorly enough to lay the groundwork for such a thing, and the President isn't one to resort to the demagoguery. For the moment, anyway, the demagoguery du jour happens to be isolationism, and Bush isn't having any.

Troop reductions in Iraq, if done for the right reasons (more capability on the Iraqis' part to handle their own security) will help bring many from this group, as well as many on the right, around to supporting the President and his party in November, particularly if the Dems are then still trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Timing is everything. We're about 6 months away from mid-term elections, and developments in Iraq will give the president's popularity at least a moderate boost, just in time to keep the Republicans in control for the rest of Bush's 2nd term. The Dems are peaking, and celebrating, too early.

10 FormerDem

Troops have been sent to reinforce Ramadi,
beseiged by the insurgency in the past few days.

The Kurds are ethnically cleansing (rightly
or wrongly) Arabs (whom Saddam had sent to displace Kurds years ago) and Turkmen in the North.
Turkey is worried about Kurdish restiveness and has sent large numbers of troops to the border.The "quiet" north alone will be the center of increasing clashes because
of disputed Kirkuk and Mosul .the Shia are rebelling against the Brits in the South.

The media is not reporting Iraq thoroughly because it is too dangerous, not because the
media is liberal.

Rummy admitted the insurgency could go on
for 5 years a few weeks ago. This was
echoed by Barry McCafferty, CBS military
analyst 10-14 days ago.

But let us hypothesize the new government
can suddenly disband the atrocity-committing private militas which really control the government in large part.And let us postulate
that the Sunni insurgency can be brought to
heel quickly.

The new government will still be pro-Iranian
with al Sadr a big presence. Several key Iraqi
politicians in power, have vowed to defend Iran if Bush takes any action against it in the nuclear energy standoff.And they are working in tandem with militias.

If this is "victory" I hate to see what defeat is.