The Moderates
THE MODERATES....Greg Sargent passes along Andrea Mitchell's version of what moderate Republicans are saying these days:
[Petraeus] is telling them that he will report some progress, that he hopes to be able to report some progress by August. And in turn, what many Republican senators are saying, Chris, is that if there isn't real progress by the end of the summer, that's when there are going to really break with the president, that they're going along with this surge out of respect for the generals.I dunno. I think I'm with Atrios on this. We've been hearing for about six years that moderate Republicans are going to break with Bush any day now on some issue or another, but the day never seems to come. When August rolls around, Petraeus will give another briefing where he'll provide a seemingly well-grounded and reality-based assessment of conditions in Baghdad accompanied by seemingly unimpeachable metrics showing that progress is being made — and the moderates will stroke their chins and agree that we're right on the cusp of serious change and we have to give Petraeus a chance to make his plan work.
Or something like that. At most, a few of the senators who are up for reelection might bolt, but that's about it.