Of late, Sen. Lieberman is saying about Iraq these things:

(a) What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory. And

(b): History will judge us harshly if we do not stretch across the divide of distrust to join together to complete our mission successfully in Iraq. It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be the commander in chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war, we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril.

Most Democrats profess themselves appalled at Lieberman's deviationist moderation; some might prefer him out of the party. Yet his position on Iraq blends nicely with - these days - Sen. Clinton's. She voted to go in, yet: "If Congress had been asked (to authorize the war) based on what we know now, we never would have agreed." Now, in her programmed rightward rush, she rejects "a rigid timetable that the terrorists can exploit, and I reject an open timetable that has no ending attached to it."

It is impossible to know where Sen. Clinton really stands - whether her position du jour is grounded in principle or politics. She alternates between sounding almost Liebermanesque and recalling John Kerry's incomprehensible remark a year ago that he voted for the war before he voted against it.

Kerry's latest pronouncement: "There is no reason . . . that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of th - of - the historical customs, religious customs."

Party Chairman Howard Dean is out screaming again, with some in his own party speeding away from him as fast as they are from Bush. The House emphatically has rejected calls for withdrawal twice in as many months. These two Washington Post page-one headlines reflect the Democrats' Iraqi disarray:

Dec. 5 - "Democrats Fear That Anti-War Remarks Could Backfire"

and

Dec. 7 - "Democrats Find Iraq Alternative Is Elusive."

No wonder Bush's numbers have turned. He is making the case for steadfastness at last. And what Republican Chairman Ken Mehlman terms the "retreat and defeat" Democrats, with no alternative plan in the realm of right reason, offer nothing but idiot teemings; next they may start groaning low about one, two, many Iraqs. Their reigning intellect may be James Carville, who has noted: "Sometimes, the problem with being a Democrat is being a Democrat."

Correct. And perhaps not least among the factors in the reversal of some of President Bush's numbers is this: Many Americans, however weary and impatient they may be about Iraq, are not lying awake at night thinking how much happier they would be with President Kerry or President Gore.