It's unseemly to find parallels between Iraq and the midterms. In Iraq real people are dying. In the midterms it was a political party licking its wounds.

All the same, there's one unstriking parallel and one striking parallel.

The unstriking parallel: In each case the strategy for victory failed. The striking parallel: In each case it's clear that no strategy may have been successful.

Sometimes (switching metaphors) you just have a bad hand.

Of course, in each case the Republicans dealt themselves the bad cards they held.

Both failures stem from a single decision: the decision to invade a country that hadn't attacked us.

How long will we have to wait for Bush to admit this?

Neither LBJ nor Nixon ever admitted they had erred. My guess is Bush won't either.

Now go and have a nice weekend.