The Tale has returned for another repetition, along with predictable invocations of the Divine Twins, O’Hanlon and Pollack, and even a nod to the ‘Bamster himself:

Do Democratic opposition leaders keep blaming each other for voting for the Iraq war? Or are they now talking about expanding military operations to other countries? Sen. Hillary Clinton once was damned for voting to authorize the war in Iraq. But her even more liberal rival Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., now expresses his own willingness to invade nuclear Islamic Pakistan.

This is, of course, stupid.  Obama’s remarks on Pakistan are predicated on his opposition to the Iraq war and followed a fairly involved discussion of how we would withdraw from Iraq.  Whatever you think of his Pakistan remarks, they are not evidence that opposition to the Iraq war has weakened or a sense that the public mood is shifting away from the antiwar crowd.  Far from it!  On the contrary, it may reflect a new confidence that withdrawal is inevitable and that it is necessary to begin planning for the future after Iraq.  This is not simply a case of Obama framing his belligerence in anti-Iraq war terms, but it is a clear case of someone who is vehemently against the Iraq war but who is nonetheless a committed interventionist.  The Democratic debate is so far beyond getting out of Iraq that there is hardly anything left to talk about.  Thus they have moved on to debating Pakistan policy.  Using Blankley’s method, I would say that a sure sign that the “surge” is certainly failing is that so many of its domestic backers are engaging in embarrassing, desperate arguments that seek to inflate even the slightest shred of good news into a major trend that favours their position.

Update: By the way, has anyone else noticed that this is Hanson’s millionth column in which he explains to us that the current debate has happened during previous wars and that many people change positions based on the ebb and flow of battle?  I suppose this is true, but doesn’t he get tired of saying the exact same thing again and again and again?  I know I get tired of reading it.