Cindy, Iraq and the Political Fallout

To the chagrin of the Bush Administration -- and to the discomfort of Democrats who don't have a clear stand -- Cindy Sheehan's encampment in Texas is still drawing huge numbers, getting big media coverage and stirring national controversy about the Iraq war. The Drudge Report is back to blaring, all-caps headlines attacking Sheehan -- always a clear sign that the right-wing establishment feels they are in deep crisis mode and losing the war for public opinion.

The New York Times filed a revealing piece today about changing public sentiment, and Sheehan's role:

Republicans said a convergence of events - including the protests inspired by the mother of a slain American soldier outside Mr. Bush's ranch in Texas, the missed deadline to draft an Iraqi Constitution and the spike in casualties among reservists - was creating what they said could be a significant and lasting shift in public attitude against the war.

The Republicans described that shift as particularly worrisome, occurring 14 months before the midterm elections. As further evidence, they pointed to a special election in Ohio two weeks ago, where a Democratic marine veteran from Iraq who criticized the invasion decision came close to winning in a district that should have easily produced a Republican victory.

"There is just no enthusiasm for this war," said Representative John J. Duncan Jr., a Tennessee Republican who opposes the war. "Nobody is happy about it. It certainly is not going to help Republican candidates, I can tell you that much."

But as Mark Leon Goldberg of The American Prospect points out, this political fallout won't help Democrats either as long as they continue to waffle on the issue:

The reason we are experiencing an incipient intraparty war over Iraq is pretty simple: No Democratic leader who once supported the war has yet to deviate from the administration’s stance that an indefinite military presence continues to be necessary. Not Clinton, not Reid, not Kerry -- no one. Hawkish Democrats have been as stubborn as Bush on this point. Letting them off the hook and pulling our punches as we wait for Hawkish Senator So-And-So to drift toward us war skeptics seems somewhat futile. No one in the hawkish establishment has yet to change their position on withdrawal, and I see no reason to think that they will muster the courage to do so any time soon.

Maybe Democrats could learn a thing or two from Republican Rep. Walter Jones (NC). UPDATE: Or Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE). Or ...