A Decent Interval, Part IV

— -- WASHINGTON, Jan. 11

The President's new Iraq plan is based on a series of assumptions.

The Gang of 500 (ALL 500 members in this case, not just 492 of them) has its own set of core assumptions about the politics of Iraq:

1. The coming wave of public opinion polls are going to show pretty much what ABC News/WP found immediately after the Bush speech. LINK

2. Under the normal rules of politics, a president who has a determined and united congressional majority against him; public opinion against him; and many prominent voices in his own party against him, would look for a political way out -- but George W. Bush plays by different rules. He isn't up for re-election; he doesn't care about the polls; he does not seem to care about the long-term politial hopes of his party, such as if Sens. Coleman or Sununu have tough re-election fights; and he doesn't care if relentless pursuit of his Iraq goals crushes whatever chance he has of achieving anything else in the last two years of his presidency.

The Note also sees some seemingly flat-out wrong assumptions being made about the Iraq situation:

1. George W. Bush: "Most of Iraq's Sunni and Shia want to live together in peace." (More right is David Brooks in the New York Times: "The enemy in Iraq is not some discrete group of killers. It's the maelstrom of violence and hatred that infects every institution, including the government and the military. Instead of facing up to this core reality, the Bush administration has papered it over with salesmanship and spin.")

2. Howard Fineman: "I have never seen [George W. Bush], in public or private, look less convincing, less sure of himself, less cocky." LINK (You might have been knowing W for a long time, Howard, but the visual you and some others saw doesn't reflect the more fundamental reality: the man is as assured and as cocksure as ever.)

3. The bullies at the Wall Street Journal ed board: "We'll bet Mr. [Carl] Levin never has the political nerve to follow through on anything but TV sound-bite criticism." (We predict that there will be a snowballing of Democratic "nerve," as caucus unity, Bush recalcitrance, public opinion polls, donors, and bloggers lead towards increasingly loud choruses of "Change now.")

In the short term, watch two things:

A.The hearings on the Hill.B.More Republican defections.

In the medium term, watch two things:

A. How quickly congressional Democrats move from symbolic votes to substantive, teethy ones.B. (Have we mentioned), more Republican defections.

In the long term -- all that matters -- watch two things:

A. Facts on the ground.B. How long Mr. Bush is willing to defy political gravity to pursue his Unholy Grail.

Almost as if he is involved in a campaign run by Andy Card, President Bush participates in the presentation of a posthumous Medal of Honor to Marine Corporal Jason Dunham, who died on April 22, 2004, eight days after jumping on a grenade in Karabilah, Iraq at 9:50 am ET. President Bush then has lunch with troops and makes remarks at Freedom Hall in Fort Benning, GA at 12:40 pm ET.

Top Bush Administration officials will be on the Hill today.

After spearheading a morning White House presser that most of the cable networks inexplicably found too boring to stay with, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testifies before both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at 10:00 am ET and the House Foreign Affairs Committee at 2:00 pm ET.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Join Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace testify before the House Armed Services Committee at 1:00 pm ET.

And National Intelligence Director John Negroponte and CIA director Michael Hayden and FBI Director Robert Mueller appear before the Senate (Select) Intelligence Committee at 2:30 pm ET.

Reps. Chris Carney (D-PA), Patrick Murphy (D-PA), Tim Walz (D-MN), and Joe Sestak (D-PA), who are new Democratic members of Congress with military experience, respond to President Bush Iraq plan at 10:30 am ET at the U.S. Capitol.

A coalition of liberal groups including domestic policy groups, unions, anti-war voices and veterans are holding a 12:30 pm ET presser at the National Press Club to announce the National Campaign Against the Escalation of the War. The coalition is hoping to use tactics similar to those used to oppose President Bush's plan to carve private accounts out of Social Security.

DC for Democracy and the Win Without War Coalition are holding a 6:00 pm ET "DC Says No to More Troops in Iraq" rally in Lafayette Square across from the White House.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) attends the White House Medal of Honor ceremony this morning and will be available to speak with reporters outside the White House at the conclusion of the ceremony.

Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) meets with what his spokesman calls his Homeland Security Advisory Committee at the Hyatt Regency Washington at 11:25 pm ET.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) meets with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff at 9:30 am ET in the Hart Senate Office Building. He also will get to question Rice at 10:00 am ET when she appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

On the heels of announcing his presidential candidacy, Sen. Dodd heads to Iowa for the inaugural festivities of Gov. Chet Culver (D-IA), The Hotline reports.

As someone who continues to believe that Congress would never have supported the invasion of Iraq if more of them had family members in line for deployment, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) will re-introduce legislation this afternoon that would mandate that during wartime all American men and women aged 18-42 are eligible for a draft lottery.

POTUS speaks: '08ers react:
Janet Hook of the Los Angeles Times dedicates her entire story to '08er reaction to the President's plan including Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) Noteworthy decision to break away from the McCain/Romney/Giuliani support for the plan while on a trip to Iraq. Hook also Notes that on the Democratic side, Sens. Kerry and Edwards specifically highlight the cutting off of funds as the approach that should be taken -- something Sen. Clinton stayed away from in her statement. LINK

Rudy Giuliani appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" this morning to talk about the President's plan with ABC News' Robin Roberts and said, "I believe it is necessary."

On two different occasions, Giuliani tried to tie his experience as a New York City mayor in charge of the country's largest police force and aiming to fight crime to the President's role as Commander-in-Chief.

"I spent the last week, two weeks being briefed by everybody that would brief me -- generals and others about this. It seems to me he outlined the mistakes quite correctly. I think we took neighborhoods, we took areas, cleaned them up . . . and then we pulled the troops out. . . and within days the bad guys -- the militias, the terrorists -- came back. It reminded me, as I listened to these briefings, to what I faced in New York City when we had tremendously high levels of crime. That's one of the mistakes that had been made in the past in New York City," said Giuliani.