Referendum on the War, or a Referendum on is there a war?

I stated in an earlier post my belief that the outcome was not a vote on the war, but as I was trying to get to sleep last night, it occurred to me that it was not so much a referendum on the war, as on "if there is a war." In an earlier interview with Congressman Charlie Norwood a couple months ago, I told him I thought there were no longer two parties, but two mindsets, 9/12 and 9/10. That phraseology seemed to confuse him a little bit, because most of the democrats in power HAVE a 9/10 mindset. There is no war on Islamic Fascism, Jihadism, there is only a misconcieved Neo-Con (read: jewish) adventure in Iraq. In so far as the GOP and President Bush took a hit on this issue, he took it from both sides, there are some, who are angry with them for doing what they've done in the conflict, and other's angry for them not doing enough.

As Mark Steyn asked "Where's the Offence"

Where as Cindy Sheehan would be in the other category. Apparently even a Democratic Congress can't keep her out of jail.

It's going to be a frustrating 2 years for those of us who bought into the idea of "making the world safe BY democracy" (or rather, those of us who were excited when President Bush bought into OUR idea).

With the ouster of Rumsfeld and his replacement by Gates, we are going to see a resurgence in the "realists" around the White House. Realists are the ones who had no trouble dealing with Saddam Hussein, or the Assad's of Syria. Realists who can smile and shake hands with the sheiks, and ignore them as they funnel money to Al Qaeda,Hamas and Hezbollah.

An ugly two years.