Collapse of Support for the War

In today's Washington Post, Harold Meyerson has an interesting take on why the Bush administration has been unable to maintain support for the War in Iraq. Here's the key passage:

Though the public sides with the Democrats on more key
issues than it does with Republicans, it's Republicans who
have won more elections, in good measure because the GOP
has raised its ad hominem attacks on Democrats' character
and patriotism to a science. Which is why, however perverse
this may sound, the absence of an antiwar movement is
proving to be a huge political problem for the Bush
administration, and why the Republicans are reduced to
trying to turn Dick Durbin, who criticized our policies at
Guantanamo Bay, into some enemy of the people. The
administration has no one to demonize. With nobody blocking
the troop trains, military recruitment is collapsing of its own
accord. With nobody in the streets, the occupation is being
judged on its own merits. Unable to distract people from his
own performance, Bush is tanking in the polls.