Pelosi's mistake? Or is it too late for Bush?

Bill Kristol sees Nancy Pelosi's newfound support for immediate withdrawal from Iraq as a boon to Republicans.

Pelosi's endorsement today of the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq makes the House Democrats the party of defeat, the party of surrender. Bush's strong speech today means the GOP is likely to be--if Republican Congressmen just keep their nerve--the party of victory. Now it is possible that the situation in Iraq will worsen over the next year. If that happens, Bush and the GOP are in deep trouble. They would have been if Pelosi had said nothing. But it is much more likely that the situation in Iraq will stay more or less the same, or improve. In either case, Republicans will benefit from being the party of victory.

Rick Moran thinks Bush is "shouting down a dry well."

So despite a brilliant speech, the President may just as well have been giving it to an empty room. Until other factors working against the President can be blunted, support for the war and for victory in Iraq will be held hostage to the forces of negativism, defeatism, and political posturing.

I don't know what to think. I generally think of Pelosi as a posturing bimbo, but I was absurdly disheartened when I heard her call for a withdrawal on the news.

This, on the other hand, provides some comfort. It describes Churchill's mid-war scuffle with Parliament and the press.

Churchill is remembered in the popular imagination as someone who rallied a nation, vowed never to give up, and took his country to victory. Few remember that Churchill faced a crisis of confidence two-and-a-half years into the war, exploited by those “with lesser burdens to carry.”