"They're Saying, 'Get Out of Iraq'"

Former Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd is breaking publically with his old boss, admitting that Kerry was right in calling for a withdrawal from Iraq last year.

In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s leadership.

He criticized the president as failing to call the nation to a shared sense of sacrifice at a time of war, failing to reach across the political divide to build consensus and ignoring the will of the people on Iraq. He said he believed the president had not moved aggressively enough to hold anyone accountable for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and that Mr. Bush still approached governing with a "my way or the highway" mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides....

He said he thought Mr. Bush handled the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks well but "missed a real opportunity to call the country to a shared sense of sacrifice."

He was dumbfounded when Mr. Bush did not fire Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld after revelations that American soldiers had tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib....

His views against the war began to harden last spring when, in a personal exercise, he wrote a draft opinion article and found himself agreeing with Mr. Kerry’s call for withdrawal from Iraq. He acknowledged that the expected deployment of his son Daniel was an important factor....

He said he came to believe Mr. Bush’s views were hardening, with the reinforcement of his inner circle. But, he said, the person "who is ultimately responsible is the president." And he gradually ventured out with criticism, going so far as declaring last month in a short essay in Texas Monthly magazine that Mr. Bush was losing "his gut-level bond with the American people," and breaking more fully in this week’s interview.

"If the American public says they’re done with something, our leaders have to understand what they want," Mr. Dowd said. "They’re saying ‘Get out of Iraq.’ "

Funny how perpectives change when it's your own kid's life on the line. Dowd's disavowal of Bush is likely to strike many as just so much political opportunism--seeing the national tide turning against not only Bush but the kind of vicious, hyperpartisan politics that Dowd helped engineer to get Bush into office, he's looking at how to save his own political skin and future prospects.

Perhaps so, but he's burning a lot of bridges to do so and this very public break with this president is significant. What's more, regardless of motive, Dowd's right. Our leaders do have to understand what the American people want. And that's getting us out of Iraq, the sooner the better.