While a small Vermont town that voted, along with some others, to encourage their congressman to file a bill of impeachment against the President faces a backlash for their actions, the leaders of the Democratic Party are busy honing their strategy for the upcoming election. While the folks at the grass roots are fixated on "Bush lied, people died", the leaders are determined to make the '06 elections a referendum on the incompetence of the Bush Administration (a strategy I have recommended in the past as their best chance to take control of Congress). Fred Barnes thinks the GOP needs to head off this strategy by changing the subject. Rather than hold a referendum election on the deficiencies of the administration, the election should be about a choice between individuals. Which would you prefer, Speaker Hastert or Speaker Pelosi? Senate Majority Leader Frist or Reid? Do you want Conyers, Kennedy and Clinton running major congressional committees? I think this is the best strategy for the GOP to follow. Unfortunately, the MSM will be doing everything in their power to make the news follow the incompetence theme. Truly, this '06 election will determine whether or not the MSM is still the king-making power in the land, or if the power has diffused into the blogosphere, talk radio and the other alternative media.

Pat Buchanan has some thoughts about Republican prospects for '06.

Richard Reeves explains why he thinks Iran wants the bomb. He also, perhaps without realizing it, points out the major disconnect between the administration (and its supporters) and its opponents.

President Bush, judging from the 49-page National Security Strategy, seems to have learned no lesson, including the fact that America is not really at war. The government and its volunteer military and the new brand of privatized paramilitary corporations are at war. But the whole thing is just television to most of the citizenry -- at least, those who do not have servicemen and women in the family, or do not have a financial stake in keeping this thing going.

This is the key that explains the depth of the division in this country today. I believe we are at war, as does the President and millions of other Americans. But millions more, like Reeves, believe we are not. I have always believed that this division was avoidable, if only the President had asked Congress in the days after 9/11 to issue a declaration of war against Al Qaeda. If he had then asked Congress for a resumption of the draft, and economic measures to wean us off imported oil, he would have made Americans share in the sacrifices necessary to wage a global war. He did not. Therefore, as time has passed, millions of Americans have come to the perfectly logical conclusion that we are not at war, especially since the enemy hasn't hit us here at home since 9/11. Those who believe we should have treated 9/11 not as an act of war but, rather, as a criminal act, have seen their credibility rise with each administration mis-step and miscalculation. It is the greatest failure of the President, and one that may be seen by future historians as the reason to condemn him to the bottom rung of Presidential ratings.

William F. Buckley has some thoughts about our options concerning Iran.