mainstream political debate = republican opinion.

American public opinion isn't "divided" or "split" on this question. There are no pro-war trends here that signal the Iraq War is about to become a huge asset for the McCain campaign. Nor are any of the other cliches used repeatedly by the establishment press to claim that unconditional withdrawal is a politically unpopular position even remotely true.

To the contrary, Americans overwhelmingly favor unconditional withdrawal and it's not even close. They favor that by a 25-point margin, and it's a 29-point margin among independents. Those are huge margins. Very few public policy questions of any significance produce margins that large. And the whole point of asking the question this way -- do you favor withdrawal "regardless of what is going on in Iraq?" -- is to exclude the excuse made by John McCain, The Politico and Cokie Roberts that Americans only want to withdraw once we've "won" or once we've created a peaceful democracy there.