Scales tilt a bit in president's favor

My column last week suggested that the Bush presidency was at the tipping point, largely because of Iraq, the issue that will define it.

In the days since then, the scales have tilted a smidgen in the president's favor.

There was President Bush's stealth trip to Baghdad, closely held until he got there, to look into the eyes of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, to stiffen the backbone of the new Iraqi cabinet, and to publicly transfer the responsibility for whatever happens next in Iraq to the Iraqi leadership now in place.

The Iraqis responded with a show of force intended to convince that they will contain terrorism and restore law and order at least in Baghdad.

Meanwhile American and Iraqi forces, claiming an intelligence bonanza after eliminating Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said it had enabled them to roll up parts of the insurgent network. Documents said to have been captured during the process suggested that the insurgents were losing momentum and would, if they could, like to lure the United States into a distracting war with Iran. The legitimacy of these documents is not known.

If this was as good a week as the Bush administration has had in some time, what did it do for the Democrats, for whom Iraq is also an all-encompassing issue as they look to make gains in the fast-approaching midterm elections? The main thrust of the Democratic attack on the Republican administration is that, having occupied Iraq, it has made a mess of the post-war effort and doesn't have a plan to end it. The main thrust of the Republican response is to argue that the Democrats have nothing positive to offer and that their only plan is to berate the Republicans for not having a plan. The Democrats have announced a domestic "New Direction" agenda, dismissed in a New York Times column as a "checklist of old directions." It offers no new thinking about Iraq.

Like the Republican Party, the Democratic Party is one of diverse factions. There is a chasm between its moderate centrists and liberal left-wingers. This makes it difficult for them to offer a common position on Iraq. In recent days we have seen Sen. John Kerry, the defeated Democratic candidate in the last presidential election, at odds with Sen. Hillary Clinton, who may well be the Democratic candidate in the next presidential election. Kerry is for a specific early withdrawal date for American soldiers from Iraq. Republicans have been swift to label that a "cut-and-run" stance. Clinton, who, in preparation for a presidential bid, has been positioning herself as a moderate, recently told a Democratic gathering that setting a withdrawal date would play into the enemy's hands and she opposes it. She was roundly booed for her position.