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Yesterday,  Howard Dean responded on behalf of the Democrats to W’s weekly radio address. Bush talked about immigration, but Dean talked about the war, both of which were revealing choices.

1. I will ignore Bush since he is an irrelevant lame duck. Dean tried to achieve several objectives in his remarks.

(Dean) noted his party has made little progress toward ending the war, the cause, he said, that returned them to power.

“The American people hired Democrats last November to ensure that we end this war,” Dean said during the weekly Democratic radio address. “So let me be clear, we know that if we don’t keep our promise, we may find ourselves the minority again.”

Dean was giving his party a little pep talk, including a reminder to the Dems that they have to play harder if they want to win. He was also  letting them know that the voters would punish continued failure to end the war.  My own sense is that voters will forgive the Democrats if they see appropriate attention paid to the Iraq issue. But the former Vermont governor certainly had in mind the recent droop ion popularity of the Dem Congress.
Of course, he did not let the opposition off the hook:

Dean put the blame for the lack of progress squarely on the White House and congressional Republicans for blocking his party’s attempt at tying war funding to deadlines for troop withdrawals.

“We have to face the reality that Republicans in Congress are standing with President Bush as he stubbornly wields his veto pen,” Dean charged. In response, he proposed that the “one way to truly ensure we end this war” was to elect a Democrat as president in 2008.

Dean was attempting to deflect blame for Iraq to the party that is responsible while buying time for his own party.  Now it’s up to the elected Democratic Reps and Senators to follow through.

Meanwhile, Colin Powell has refused to say he will vote for the GOP presidential nominee in’08 and is giving advice to Obama. What is significant here is not the specific advice offered or received, but the implication of support.  As they say on The Riches, “What’s  the angle here?” What is in it for Powell to lend at least this much support to Obama?