Wishing For Worse

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com The widespread conviction among Democrats that we are destined to fail in Iraq was the key to Barack Obama's emergence as Presidential front-runner. He postured himself as the candidate who had opposed the war from the beginning. For the time being, Obama can dodge the problem by staying away from Iraq and speaking in platitudes before adoring audiences of hard-core Democrats. But the problem won't go away. Obama's Iraq policy is increasingly at odds with realities on the ground, and more and more voters are becoming aware of that fact. Obama can't stay away from Iraq until November. His advisers must be trying to figure out how to fit such a trip into a narrative that will hold water through the election. For now, they may just be hoping for things to get worse. But when they do finally announce a trip to Iraq, the nature of that visit will likely hold the key to how Obama intends to handle the increasingly dangerous (for him) issue of Iraq in the fall.