WHAT OUR TROOPS WANT FOR XMAS: ARMORED HUMVEES ... AND AN EXIT PLAN

If there is one thing Democrats should have learned from Karl Rove during this year's election, it is the value of relentlessly attacking -- day in and day out -- your opponent's perceived strength. Well, from now until Congress is asked in January to vote on the next $80 billion the president wants for the war in Iraq, not a day should go by without Democrats shouting from the rooftops that the White House is shamefully betraying the very troops it so vociferously claims to be supporting. Last week, one brave soldier's question opened the door on this scandalous subject. Now it's up to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi -- and all citizen-activists who have learned what a difference they can make -- to kick the door in, and force the media to spend some of the precious oxygen consumed by Scott Peterson's sentencing and Bernie Kerik's nanny on the dangerous mess in Iraq, with first on the list the deplorable treatment of the young men and women we've sent there. Some, like Sen. Joe Biden, have begun making the case. "This was a war of choice, not necessity," said Biden last week. "Why is it that, 20 months after Saddam's statue fell, our troops still don't have the protection they need?" He's right, but these kinds of pointed attacks have been scattershot. To really make a difference, the loyal opposition desperately needs to mount a concerted and impassioned assault on Bush's bankrupt Iraq policy. Remember how often on the campaign trail the president trotted out his sure-fire applause line, promising, "I'll make sure our troops have the best. They deserve the best"? Maybe he was referring to the quality of their funerals. [more]

• The Indelible Evil of this War [more]