[Joe 6-pack]

In principle, I agree with you for the most part. But consider this: If one truly believes that the war in which we are currently engaged (and I don't just mean Iraq, but the larger GWOT) is a war for our national survival, if not the survival of our civilization, there really can be no choice but to press it, regardless of it's unpopularity. I guess the question is, "is it right to continue to do what must be done to save the nation, even if the nation opposes the very course of action most likely to save it?" It's really quite similar to the dilemma that Lincoln faced...

[HitmanLV]

It is, but if we are right we should be a lot more successful in convincing people we are right.

I place a lot of the responsibility for the public loss of confidence on Dubya. He came across as utterly uninterested in convincing people we were right. When it finally became clear to even the admin that they had to defend themselves, it fell back on tired slogans from 2003, with lots of abstract talk about 'freedom' and such.

It was too late and not nearly good enough. In any event, it got us where we are now: an electorate that doesn't trust the commander in chief to wage a war. It's a terrible situation and it never should have come to this.

So now we have a public that doesn't want a war that we think is necessary. Pressing it further means we lose more confidence, not gain more confidence. It's very, very bad - he magnitude of which is lost on many on FR (not you).