Today's Dan Froomkin:

The Bush White House (and its press corps) often confuse tactics, strategy and goals. Tactics are what you use in the service of the strategy you choose to achieve your goal. Even the best tactics, in pursuit of an ill-chosen strategy, will not achieve the desired goal.

Bush's goal is a stable, secure, democratic Iraq. His strategy is for American troops to stay there until that happens. The tactics are getting those troops killed.

But perhaps GW is ready to blink. As always, he'll talk about convictions and taking tough stands, but in the end it's all about politics, period. His party is pissed off at him and is quickly fracturing under the weight of plummeting poll numbers.

Ironically, the November surprise may be that Bush agrees to cut and run -- only the exact phrase used will be some Rovian twist ala Madison Avenue.