I've admired Feingold for a number of years and my appreciation for Reid has been greatly increased by his new stature as Majority Leader facing a criminal executive branch providing him a platform to display his uncommon courage and high level of incorruptability.

But Reid [by his position] and Feingold [by his character and intellect] lead what is at best a bare majority for the Dems in the Senate. If they have serious hopes of moving a bill it must not just reflect on their high principles and deep senses of responsibility, but to that practical political fact, which, for a host of factors, all comes down to their realist appreciation that they cannnot overcome a veto by the Pretzel*

[* Bush forfeited his entitlement to be called  "President" by committing perjury in January 2004 in his second term oath to uphold the Constitution, when all along he fully intended to subvert it, as shown both in his signing statements to Congressional bills and in his conduct in such things as politicization of every government agency - the recent focus on the DoJ being more representative than we would like to admit. In the world of criminal law someone who is nominally on the side of the prosecution but in fact is determined to abuse that position for personal gain or to advance a hidden agenda is referred to as "bent". A crooked cop is bent. Bush is beyond bent; he's twisted.]

Edwards though no longer works within the restrictions of the Senate, and I believe his position reflects both that and, given his track record, a good deal of thinking on the problem.

I don't know what all has gone into Edwards' thinking, but I see the problem being that the US occupation of Iraq simply retards the ability of Iraqis to work this out for themselves.

At it happens I am also a fan of the Sane Saudi, Prince Turki al-Faisel, who has said in effect that the US entered Iraq uninvited but cannot leave uninvited. Prince Turki is both Arab and Sunni.

In my view what's behind his position is concern for the fate of the Arab Sunni minority given several generations of resentment among the Arab Shi'ia majority and the liklihood of that majority turning to Persian Shi'ia-dominated Iran to sponsor its goal of dominating Iraq politically and redressing all the crimes committed against Arab Shi'ia in Iraq by Saddam Hussein and his Ba-athist thugs.

That is, I believe Turki is more concerned that Iraq will end up part of a larger Persian sphere of influence than he is with advancing the interests of Sunnis over Shi'ites. And being rational and having spent some time in Washington and touring the US, he sees the rational side of the US coming to appreciate that its interests are best served by the same goals. I agree with him.

Where I diverge with him is that I do not see how the continued occupation of Iraq by the US can possibly serve to advance those interests, and worse, I see it as instead serving to identify the US with consolidating the power of Shi'ites over Sunnis - and at the same time making the US appear feckless and irrational. Leaving aside the question of the difference in contexts in which they work, I see the essential difference between Reid-Feingold and Edwards on this issue the same way.

There are lots of alternatives available to advance US interests in the Middle East to continuing to occupy Iraq. Decider Pretzel has proven beyond any doubt that he does not have the intellectual flexibility, the patience, the ego, the equanimity, the respect for others, and the incorruptibility, to entertain any of them - and of course, since he's already "decided" he just won't.

I don't suggest that Reid and Feingold fail to realize this whereas Edwards does. I see that only Edwards is in a position to articulate that the decision should be made now, rather than draw it out and face it later.

This makes the correct strategy difficult to figure out, but I have no problem at all sending exactly the same bill back to Bush if I know he will keep vetoing it! And I think we more or less know that now.

Being out of office has benefits and drawbacks in this kind of race.  One of the benefits is the ability to finesse this kind of position without any accountability.