White House in "Panic" Over Senate GOP Defections

ABC News is reporting today that the White House is in a "panic" about Republican defections concerning its Iraq war policies.

All we can say is, it's about time.

As we noted in our last post, high-level GOP opposition to the war is steadily increasing, driven no doubt by the public's increasing disenchantment with the war.

Republican senators Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar were among the first to call for a new policy on Iraq. Other prominent Republican senators to join the effort include Oregon's Gordon Smith, Ohio's George Voinovich, and New Mexico's Pete Domenici.

Don't look for Oklahoma's Republican senators to join this list anytime soon. As far as we can tell, Sen. Jim Inhofe would rather drink a gallon of Arkansas River water than say anything slightly critical of Bush and his war. Inhofe is nothing if not loyal to the pro-war fringe of his party.

As for Sen. Tom Coburn, a physician and politician likely to quarrel with a fence post if he thinks he's right, you would think he could deliver a principled anti-war position at some point in the next, say, five or six years. (Yes, we'll still be in Iraq in five or six years.)

But we won't be holding our breath.