We’ve heard General Petraeus' report. Bush bought it, tried to sell it to the nation Thursday night. Whether you’re a Moveon.org supporter or a backer of that other fringe group, the GOP, this sequence of events was no surprise - it’s merely the finale of political theater that began its run last February.  cans

And here we are!

Look, the situation in Iraq is deteriorating, improving, or unchanged, depending on who you talk with. So what?

Bush has given us no choice but to “stay his course”. So what?

We’re all tempted to bitch about all the persistent inequities and the means by which we arrived here but that doesn’t help chart an appropriate course for the future.

Look at what’s happening in the Senate. After months of demanding a hard-and-fast deadline for an American troop withdrawal, Harry Reid recently began calling for a strongly bipartisan approach to breaking free of the White House agenda in Iraq. The move is sound policy and shrewd politics - it puts the security of American troops first, it moves the agenda forward that we voted for last November and it focuses on the crossover Republican votes necessary to enact a veto-proof troop withdrawal bill.

Forget the posturing that marked Reid's earlier pronouncements about the war in Iraq being “lost”, the all-nighter, the filibusters and parliamentary maneuverings.  That merely created  partisan gridlock in the Senate which highlighted that Democrats simply do not have the votes to force a unilateral withdrawal or override the predictable presidential veto.

Americans are fed up with Iraq War - close to two thirds want an orderly withdrawal of troops to begin immediately. That being said, thoughtful Americans also understand that to withdrawal completely and unilaterally without a clear strategy for pacifying the country is risky. Petraeus, of course, argued this very point before Congress.

Indeed, what Reid has recently advocated -- a bipartisan approach that takes into account relevant recommendations of the Iraq Study Group -- is overwhelmingly supported by vast majorities of Americans! And, an orderly troop drawdown must take place on a schedule that is agreeable to the military as well as our elected officials.

Hopefully, neither you, I, nor Harry Reid will be distracted by the sound and fury that surrounds the Petraeus performance and Bush’s intractability. Harry can’t bull legislation through a partisan Senate and we shoot ourselves in the foot by permitting Bush’s political divisiveness to affect our thinking.

We’re all in this one together and there ain‘t no room in the boat for partisans - every seat‘s reserved for an American who wants to stop the carnage!

Give PEACE a chance!