So, it turns out that the anti-war left does not have enough votes to put strings on that aproprations bill meant to catch Bush in a poorly-planned trap, and they're now loading it with pork to buy the missing votes. Let's see, what could Bush do about that? Ah, yes, he could veto the bill and claim it's over the pork. Then Pelosi and Reid end up in their own catch-22 -- either support the pork and look like the stubborn bad guys as Bush starts sending generals to testify that lack of funds is killing the same troops Pelosi and Reid keep talking about (Gingrich and government shut-down anybody?), or remove the pork and lose any chance of keeping those strings attached. They could try demonizing the politicians that are thinking of switching parties. That's always a winner.

I guess that now they've squandered any sympathy the public had for them, they'll need to drum up investigations into Bush (say, human resources practices).

But that's precisely why Bush's numbers are improving. When Bush stopped talking about "all-Iraq all the time," and started efforts toward keeping old campaign promises, his numbers magically rose. If the Democrats tried something similar (stop the "all-Bush all the time" talk and start passing things), they would improve their political position.