Ever since I started following politics I've been greatly disappointed. I had heard stories about the great politicians who were able to either work behind the scenes unnoticed, or able to drum up enough public support that nobody would dare oppose them (or, like Churchill, Goldwater and Reagan, waited for country to change its mind about what was reasonable and what was insane). Most of my disappointment with politics right now has to do with watching blundering fools who think they are cold and calculating. Seriously, most of the schemes coming out of Congress are as tactful as a five-year-old closing his eyes and thinking nobody can see him.

Did Congress really just pass a non-binding bill opposed to holding land that the military captures so that the enemy doesn't recapture it? And were the key players actually surprised that everyone -- both their supporters and their opponents -- everyone responded with a yawn?

Since that didn't work, the big "shut down the war" strategy now turns on attaching conditions to spending bills. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid believe they have President Bush in a catch-22. He needs money to run the war, and Congress won't give it to him unless he agrees to take with strings attached. If he vetoes their spending bills, he'll run out of cash and American soldiers will die, and he'll get blamed for it. If he signs their spending bills, he'll get the money along with a timeline.

It's painful to watch "savvy" politicians fall for their own traps. When a President gets a bill, he can sign it, he can veto it, or he can not sign it. If he doesn't sign the bill, if Congress is in session ten days later, it becomes law. Otherwise it dies (Article I, section 7, second paragraph, near the end). In this case, President Bush can refuse to sign the bill, get the money, and state that (1) he never agreed to the strings that Pelosi and Reid attached, and (2) those strings are Unconstitutional. Sorry, no catch-22.

I once wrote that the conservative Democrats combined with Republicans probably make the largest and most solid voting block in Congress today. However, Reid and Pelosi decide what gets voted on, so that voting block is somewhat limited in what it can do. Specifically, it can't propose spending bills with no strings attached unless Reid and Pelosi sign off on it. But what happens when Reid and Pelosi upset enough politicians representing informed moderate voters? A Lieberman switch in the Senate would have Republicans setting the agenda there, and a handful of switches in the House would turn Pelosi into no more than a footnote (along the lines of "the first woman Speaker, and the shortest serving Speaker"). No catch-22, and a possibility of throwing themselves out of office. I really can't believe I'm seeing this.