Politico on the Dems’ emerging Iraq quagmire:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are calculating that it is futile to continue their months-long campaign to force an immediate end to the war, particularly after Republicans and a few Democrats returned from the summer recess intent on opposing legislation mandating a strict timetable for pulling out U.S. troops.

The change is both rhetorical and substantive. Reid and others are increasingly talking of “bipartisan compromise,” while top Democrats are reworking legislation erasing a date certain for ending the military operation. The strategic shift is certain to anger some war critics, but it reflects the reality that Democrats lack the votes to force President Bush’s hand.

“We are trying to manage expectations that we can’t end the war today or next week or next month,” said one Democrat involved in the discussions. “We have to make sure everyone understands that.”

Said another aide involved in the process: “Despite the months of debate, and all the votes, and all the ads and everything, we have not been able to break the Republicans. They are still with Bush, and that’s the reality here.”

But that’s so…verbose? 

Yeah.  Verbose.

Let’s say the same thing, the way Chuckles Schumer might have:

And let me be clear, the withdrawal of troops and emergence of peace in Iraq will happen despite the Democrats and the “peace movement”, not because of the Democrats and the “peace movement”. The inability of Democrat legislators to give the people of Iraq and America the faintest reason to believe they were serious about terrorism said to these tribes, here and there, “we have to fight al Qaeda ourselves”.

Much more concise, doncha think?

More later.