Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Speaking on ABC's This Week, Hadley said, "We think that if trends continue and we continue to make the progress and the Iraqis continue to make the progress we're making, we'll be in a position sometime next year for us to -- for the commanders on the ground to make their assessments," adding, "And it may be at that point they will come to the president and say, we want to make some adjustments." He went on to say, "It's pretty clear that no country likes to have foreign forces on their soil. We don't want to be there. Ultimately, the Iraqis don't want us there."

In the meantime, "House Democratic leaders this week will try to block any effort by members to adopt an official Democratic Caucus position on the Iraq war, recognizing such a move would highlight internal party differences and invite new political troubles."

Leadership "sources say Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.) and Caucus Chairman Bob Menendez (N.J.) agree that while members are becoming increasingly vocal about the war, a unified position on the subject is still impossible to settle on." Because of that, Pelosi "recently asked Menendez to keep this week's Caucus focused on a discussion of the war and away from a vote on the subject."

As was discussed on the Cortex yesterday, Democrats and the public have been duped by the Republican Wurlitzer into believing that a the 'rift' among Democrats on the issue is to a fictional degree atypical of most issues on the Hill and beyond the point where cooperation and compromise would be either effective or even possible. Simply not true.

And in a related episode John McCain appeared on NBC's Meet the Press (12/04/05, Russert) saying that an elevation of troop levels Is "Not going to happen.," He continued,  "I think it was a terrible mistake when we didn't have enough troops there, and we paid a very heavy price in American blood and treasure because of the secretary of defense' failure to recognize the obvious. ... We...continue to pay a heavy price for not having enough troops to bring the situation under control, which allowed places like Fallujah and others to become hot beds and centers of insurgent activities." McCain went on to say, "I still think we should have more troops there. But it's not going to happen. And that's just reality. It's not going to happen. But we really needed to expand the size of the Marine Corps and the Army so we didn't have the terrific strain on our Guard and Reserve, particularly our guard units."

Although there are certainly some points of agreement, it's clear that McCain - amongst the more reasonable on the right - is living in a different world regarding the desired future involvement of the US in Iraq.

And that is where the REAL rift is.