And therefore they somewhat deserve the credit for its success, don’t they? It’s Paul Kanjorski, congressman from Pennsylvania, lately observed confessing that Democrats lied to voters before the 2006 midterms about their power to end the war. I’m always suspicious of edits as brief as the one you’ll see in the clip, but the contrast with his pre-surge defeatism is clear enough. If this seems familiar, it’s because we saw the same type of reversal six months ago from another Pennsylvania congressman whose name will be more familiar to you. Just like we’re seeing the first stirrings of something right now, very tentatively and by proxy, from Obama. St. Barack can’t afford to start talking about trying to win so the best we can hope for is the sort of “declare victory and go home” strategy being hinted at by Sullivan. Things are getting better, so by all means let’s get the hell out before they get better still and people start jumping to unhelpful conclusions about the left’s judgment of Iraq’s prospects being also less than infallible. Click the image to watch.

Update: A good point in the comments from Spirit of 1776: “I’ve said before, and still believe, the dems will be happy to win in Iraq if they can spin it their victory. And for the most part, I think Bush is happy to let them spin it, as long as we win.” Indeed. Nothing but nothing is going to get the left excited about possibly winning the war if it redounds in any way to conservatives’ advantage. If Bush wants to encourage them to stay the course, he should grit his teeth and start congratulating them in his speeches for having provided the funds that paid for the surge and for the new chance Iraqis are getting. No time for pride.