Opinion (James P. Pinkerton): What about Iraq?

In politics, you can win by losing -- and lose by winning. The Bush administration is winning the battle to beat back the Baker-Hamilton commission. But what does that bode for Iraq? And for the 2008 elections?
The Baker-Hamilton commission will be remembered as a failed bid by the bipartisan centrist establishment to cook up a new policy for Iraq. But the opening sentence of the report -- "The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating" -- set a tone of criticism that understandably caused the Bush administration and its allies to bristle.

And so the Baker-Hamiltonians have been derided by the right as "appeasers," "surrender monkeys" and "betrayers." For their part, the Democrats have been mostly supportive of the report.

President Bush could have flummoxed the Democrats by embracing Baker-Hamilton. If he had done so, many top Democrats would have been obligated to join him, politically speaking, in the quagmire of Iraq. That's the point about bipartisan commissions when they're successful: Most in Washington feel compelled to dive in, too, lest they be accused of not coming together for the sake of the country.

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