All In

This Washington Post article has the White House making the ultimate bet on the 2006 elections, saying that it's the only hope of "salvaging the Presidency." They might have thought of that before they assembled the patheic group of candidates currently running on the Republican ticket.

Bush and Cheney have made almost 100 fundraising appearances between them this year. And we know their game plan, they've used it the last two cycles. Tax cuts, national security (maybe a sprinkle of anti-immigrant Mexi-bashing tossed in for good measure). But look at these two grafs for this amazing bit of self-delusion:

Bush remains a firm believer in the "Iraq first" strategy. The war has overshadowed everything else and, in the White House's view, to a large extent has poisoned the public against other messages -- to the point that many Americans fault Bush's handling of the economy even though economic performance has been strong. So the White House calculates that if the public sees any improvement in Iraq and a withdrawal of even some U.S. troops, Republicans will be rewarded.

Aides point to the president's last spike in the polls, which came late last year after Iraqi elections and a series of Iraq speeches by Bush. A top adviser said Rove and White House political director Sara M. Taylor are advising candidates not to duck the issue of Iraq but rather to make it a centerpiece of their campaigns.

Brilliant idea, guys. The White House is admitting that they are slaves to events on the ground. There's a lot of talk today about this story that Bush and Blair will announce a phased withdrawal down to 100,000 US and far fewer coalition troops. Blair set the stage for this with today's surprise visit:

The new Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, today said Iraqis could be in control of security by the end of the year in all of the country apart from Baghdad and Anbar province.

Mr Maliki, appearing at a news conference with Tony Blair, who is visiting Baghdad, indicated that he expected the Iraqi government to begin taking over control of some of the more peaceful provinces from the multinational forces from next month.

This is a shadow play, an attempt to control the situation rather than having it control them. They want parades and "bring the troops home" parties to try and force the narrative that everything's just fine. While I'd prefer all our troops were redeployed over the horizon, this long-rumored "drawdown" doesn't mean a thing. It has nothing to do with our intended goals in Iraq. In fact I'll bet that the contractor/mercenary numbers go UP as the troop numbers go down. Murtha said this kind of shadow play would absolutely happen and he hasn't been wrong yet.

Bush will reject calling this leaving, and so his little political gambit won't work because Americans will not be made hopeful that this will be the end of the war. In fact, Democrats should push Republicans by questioning whether or not this is the end of the war, which will put us on the same side as the American people.

When your opponent goes all in, you don't have to fold. You can call his bluff. I know there are enough fresh progressive candidates that will do so. But it'll take the national party to follow their lead.