Following the Polls, or Following Their Convictions?

Either way, they lose. That's the opinion of Rich Lowry in a column today:

Cynics charge that Democrats have been following the polls in their stepped-up criticisms of the war. But it's much worse than that - they have been following their convictions.

It is political calculation that has long kept Democrats from airing what they truly believe about the Iraq war, but with the changed political environment, they finally feel that they can reprise 1968, that glorious year when they helped sink another American war effort. So, Sen. John Kerry is back to accusing American troops of ''terrorizing'' women and children just as he did 35 years ago. The Iraq war offers two great dramas: Iraqis voting in their third national election as they struggle to create a viable democracy, and Democrats shadowboxing with infantile obsessions from the Vietnam era.

More than 100 Democrats in Congress voted to authorize the war because many of them thought it was good politics to do so. It turns out it would have been much better politics to have voted their beliefs, so no flip-flopping would be necessary when they came to oppose the war openly. Part of the Democrats' indictment against President Bush is that he made them vote on the war prior to the November 2002 election as if to say, ''How dare you make us vote at a time when we would be running scared from our own principles.''

[...]

The Democrats can't help themselves. The party's attitudes about matters of war and peace were forged during Vietnam, and so defeat is stamped in its DNA. Learning what they consider the lesson from Vietnam - that the war dragged on too long when it was a lost cause - they consider declaring defeat the height of geopolitical wisdom in almost any circumstance.

Perhaps they eventually will be proved right, but the American public would prefer to try to win. This is why Democratic calls for retreat are so politically perilous, and so senseless, when Iraq might be on the cusp of a turning. What a fine irony it would be if after denouncing President Bush for being out of touch with Iraqi reality, Democrats were even more so, right at the moment they began to be true to themselves.

Good stuff - read the it all here.