If Democrats Remain Silent on Iraq Now, They Will Pay a Stiff Price in November - Arianna Huffington

Although Election Day is still eight months away, this is a crucial moment in the 2008 campaign. While Clinton and Obama trade blows, the Republicans are slowly winning the war over the war. And Democrats are doing very little to stop them.

The idea that the surge is working and that the U.S. is making progress -- the self-declared make or break issue of John McCain's candidacy -- is taking hold with the public. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that nearly half of Americans -- 48 percent -- believe that the military effort in Iraq is "going well." This is an 18 percent jump from a year ago.

Along with the White House and McCain, who pounds the "surge is working" drum at almost every campaign stop, we can thank the media for much of this shift. Over the last seven months, there has been a massive 80 percent reduction in the amount of coverage devoted to the war. And this lack of attention has taken a profound toll: a new study found that public awareness of U.S. deaths in Iraq has plummeted since August 2007, when 54 percent of the public was able to say how many American soldiers had been killed in the war. Now, just 28 percent are aware that the death count is about to reach 4,000. Chilling.

So McCain and the White House PR machine are able to promote the myth of success in Iraq without much pushback from the media. Or from Democrats. Indeed, the most lasting "opposition party" image of the last few months regarding the surge is Hillary Clinton springing to her feet at the State of the Union when the president declared "Ladies and gentlemen, some may deny the surge is working, but among terrorists there is no doubt." Is there any wonder the public is confused?