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If it was like death warmed over, if that smarmy little smirk was off his face and he looked like an undertaker, then it's TERRIFIC news. He's the world's worst poker player. It's all over his face as though it were lit with neon. If he's looking somber about this, rather than snarky and twinkle-eyed, it means he and his other American Enterprise Institute brotherhood of vermin are scared sick. And that's good for the rest of us.
I think the momentum is with Ned AND friends - AND converts, and me-too's, and others who WILL see the light and read - WITH COMPREHENSION - the writing on the wall. I think by November, there will be a serious demoralization as the perception of loser stench settles in heavily with the GOP. I think they know their necks are on the block, because Iraq isn't just suddenly going to get magically better. The Middle East is not just magically going to settle down because contradicta burbles and stutters a few things about diplomacy. And as they grow further demoralized, they'll be devolving deeper and deeper into disarray. You'll hear it all over the place, in mentions large and small. There'll be a bunker mentality/gloom settling over the White House and we may even see little dribs and drabs about bush drinking again, or some such thing. Watch the cocky attitudes fade like the last traces of green from fallen leaves. Watch the bad publicity grow and build upon itself. bush may even try a Hail Mary play of bringing some troops home as an October surprise to manipulate the vote. But by then, I suspect, the momentum will be so huge that it'll be unstoppable.
Look, I already saw it out here in California from Jane Harman and DiFi. Jane Harman never saw a bush maneuver she didn't like, in the intelligence committee, and never said much more than peep about registering objections or voicing outrage or trying to offer any opposition. Then all of a sudden strident anti-war challenger Marcy Winograd arrives on the scene, and all of a sudden, Jane gets religion. Dianne Feinstein altered her approaches a little, also. As they parse THIS, the Miracle of Connecticut, they'll be forced to stand up, and stand for something - for a change, instead of trying to dance their way around the issues for fear of upsetting the tide they still thought was unstoppable in bush/rove's favor. This will - um - shall we say - INSPIRE them to stand up and act like Democrats.
It's the tonic we need! And THANK GOD! Because Cynthia McKinney didn't fare well yesterday, and you KNOW if Ned Lamont had failed, the punditry ALL OVER TV, radio, and print would be nonstop about how bush got a new lease on life and it proved that to go against him and speak up too much against the war is political suicide. Ned Lamont spared us all that. Most of 'em won't even get around to the McKinney issue for awhile, because this is too splashy a story. It will blunt the impact of Cynthia's troublesome (and I suspect FISHY) loss.
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