Perhaps that is why Obama's sober speech omitted the Churchillian flourishes that the right-wing country-club commandos always want to hear. But the prospect of a negotiated solution could explain why the president and his war cabinet have laid out a timeline that proceeds from the onset of the surge to the beginning of withdrawal over a period of less than two years. It may also explain why the rhetoric of both the president and his commanders promises to "stop the momentum" of the insurgency over the coming year or so, rather than vowing the extirpation of the Taliban and its allies. 

If a "properly resourced" counterinsurgency force could blunt the Taliban's initiative between now and the summer of 2011, then it is conceivable that some "elements" of the insurgent movement, which is composed of three major and many minor groups, would agree to sit down for talks with the Karzai regime. At the moment -- with everyone agreeing that the insurgents gained the upper hand during the Bush administration's neglect of Afghanistan -- there is little incentive for Mullah Omar or any of the other insurgents to stop fighting and start talking. 

As McChrystal acknowledged last summer, he cannot even accurately estimate how much of the country is controlled by insurgent forces because ISAF has no intelligence about so much of the terrain. Under those conditions, the ambitions of the Taliban remain the same as they were eight years ago -- to regain total control of the "Islamic caliphate" of Afghanistan. So from Obama's perspective, the best and only way to blunt those ambitions is to reverse the course of the conflict, forcing the Taliban and its allies to reconsider their long-term interests. 

The argument of the president's critics is that by setting a deadline for troop withdrawals to begin, his plan will allow the insurgents to "lay low" for a year or two. But laying low by definition would require the insurgents to slow down or cease their own momentum -- and let the ISAF and Afghan forces gain ground. The result would be the same: a stalemate on the ground that might encourage negotiations instead of protracted civil war. 

Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether American and NATO escalation is self-defeating -- as it may very well be for many reasons -- the urge to drive a bargain might well underlie the Obama strategy. He understands that Afghanistan presents a complex problem and that after eight years of incompetence, arrogance and abuse by the former administration, its troubles are not susceptible to a military solution, if they ever were. Much of the dispute between the insurgents and the government represents long-standing ethnic, tribal and regional grievances, as well as a divide between urban, educated elites and rural, traditional populations. 

For negotiations to serve American interests as articulated by Obama, the Taliban and its allies would have to renounce al-Qaida, convincingly and permanently. Some observers have argued that those connections are not as close as they appeared to be in the past -- and the insurgents have tried to portray themselves as nationalist defenders of Afghan sovereignty, not as puppets of a foreign jihadi movement. The latest signal came in their response to Obama's speech, in which they indicated that they will take no terrorist actions against the United States or any other Western governments, merely wishing to drive the invaders off their soil. 

From the outset of his campaign, Obama always said he regarded securing Afghanistan as a vital national interest of the United States, and pledged to commit additional troops there if needed. The plan he enunciated and the resources he has committed are unlikely to win a military victory or even achieve stability. What he may hope to do, by preventing a Taliban victory, is to enlist the international community and especially Afghanistan's neighboring states in a diplomatic effort, leading to a cease-fire by the summer of 2011. Then American forces could begin to come home -- and he could plausibly claim to have ended both of the wars he inherited before running for reelection. 

Having accumulated five felony convictions in Arkansas and at least eight felony charges in Washington, according to the Seattle Times, Clemmons was undoubtedly a danger to the community who ought to have been returned to prison long ago by law enforcement authorities. Only days before the police shooting, he was released on $150,000 bail from a jail in Pierce County, Wash., where he was incarcerated on charges of raping a child.

As Huckabee suggested in a statement released on Monday, courts and law enforcement agencies in Washington should probably share the blame for Sunday's carnage. "Should he be found to be responsible for this horrible tragedy, " the statement said, referring to Clemmons, "it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington State."

In short, Huckabee was arguing, the killings attributed to Clemmons were not Huckabee's fault. Certainly they were not his fault alone. But this incident has revived memories of other decisions he made that later led to terrible consequences. The damage to his political future will hinge on how deeply news organizations now delve into those cases -- and the bizarre faith-based rationale behind his use of the clemency and pardon powers of the governor.

Huckabee has proudly declared on many occasions that he disdains the separation of church and state, insisting that his strict Baptist piety should serve as the bedrock of public policy. Nowhere in his record as governor was the influence of religious zeal felt more heavily than in the distribution of pardons and commutations, as his own explanations have indicated. During those years he granted more commutations and pardons than any governor during the previous four decades, many of them surely justified as a response to excessive penalties under the state's draconian narcotics laws. But others were deeply controversial, especially because so many of his acts of mercy appeared to depend on interventions by fellow Baptist preachers and by inmate professions of renewed Christian faith.

No doubt word spread among the prison population that the affable governor was vulnerable to appeals from convicts who claimed to be born again. Clemmons too was among those who benefited from Huckabee's tendency to believe such pious testimonials. "I come from a very good Christian family and I was raised much better than my actions speak," he explained in his clemency application in 2000. "I'm still ashamed to this day for the shame my stupid involvement in these crimes brought upon my family's name ... I have never done anything good for God, but I've prayed for him to grant me in his compassion the grace to make a start. Now, I'm humbly appealing to you for a brand new start."

Surely the most notorious instance of misplaced mercy involved Wayne Dumond, a rapist and murderer now deceased, who was originally sent to prison in Arkansas for raping a distant cousin of Bill Clinton. During Clinton's presidency the Dumond case became an obsession among certain right-wing pundits and politicians, who insisted that Dumond had been framed and brutalized by the "Clinton machine." When Huckabee became governor, he supported a parole for Dumond, winning applause from the Republican right -- until the former prisoner raped and killed a young woman in Missouri. Dumond later died in prison, under suspicion that he had murdered at least one other woman after his Arkansas release -- a tragic outcome for which Huckabee has repeatedly tried to blame others, including his two Democratic predecessors in the statehouse.

The real engine behind Dumond's release, however, was a Baptist minister and ultra-conservative ideologue named Jay Cole, who also happened to be a friend of Huckabee. Cole would tell the governor about his visits with the supposedly innocent Dumond, when the minister and the prisoner would read the Bible and pray together.

Perhaps the worst instance of that same syndrome, chronicled in detail by Arkansas journalists, concerned an Air Force sergeant named Glen Green, who was sentenced to prison for life after confessing that he had raped and killed a teenage girl. After beating the woman with nunchucks, he violated her almost lifeless body, ran over her with his car and buried her in a swamp. But yet another preacher friend of Huckabee's named Rev. Johnny Jackson somehow persuaded the governor that this incredibly brutal killing had been an "accident" -- and that Green had repented, come to Jesus and therefore should be freed.

Two years ago, I noted that Huckabee knew almost nothing about the Green case beyond what his preacher pal had told him. He consulted neither the prosecutor nor the victim's family, and overruled the dissent of his own parole board. After he announced that Green would be released, the furious public reaction forced him to reverse the decision. Yet he continued to release murderers and other violent criminals despite angry dissent from local prosecutors.

Huckabee granted mercy to prisoners whom he chanced to meet, to prisoners who had personal connections to him or his family, and especially to prisoners who were vouchsafed to him by the pastors he had befriended during his years as a Baptist minister and denominational leader. Among the thugs who benefited from his mercy was a robber who beat an old man to death with a lead pipe.

During the 2008 campaign, Huckabee's arrogance and stupidity mostly escaped the full scrutiny of the national press corps, in part because his stint as a contender was so brief. But next time, if there is a next time, he should get no such free pass -- and his claims to divine guidance ought to be thoroughly debunked. 

Note: This story was updated after publication with news of Clemmons' reported death.

Among the handful of Democratic senators who have threatened to support a Republican filibuster, Lincoln is alone in facing reelection next year. Her weakness in recent polls, which suggest that well under half of her home state's voters approve of her performance, has clearly frightened her and emboldened nearly a dozen Republican candidates who want to run against her. Despite careful pandering to right-wing opinion, she has inevitably become a prime target of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has vowed to punish her for voting with her party on healthcare.

But as that fateful tally approaches, Lincoln is at last feeling serious pressure from Democrats as well. The man who brought the free clinic to Little Rock -- along with "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann -- is Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who could be encouraged to enter a primary against her should she uphold the Republican filibuster. A former Clinton administration official and Rhodes scholar, Halter raised his profile by establishing a popular statewide lottery, with proceeds dedicated to education.

When Halter was asked on "Countdown" whether he might run for Lincoln's seat, he didn't say no. No doubt he knows that the activists who belong to Moveon.org and Democrats for America have vowed to raise millions of dollars to support a primary opponent for Lincoln unless she votes for cloture.

Lincoln's position is especially perilous at the moment because no matter what she says or does, her ratings seem to decline. Back in July, she wrote an Op-Ed essay on healthcare reform for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the state's largest daily newspaper, indicating that she supported "real" reform, including either "a quality, affordable public plan or non-profit plan that can accomplish the same goals as those of a public plan." In that same essay she went on to berate "the opponents of reform, who have no real plan for improving health care," for reviving the "tired arguments of the past," with their warnings about "a Washington takeover of health care which will raise your taxes, get between you and your doctor, and eliminate private insurance." She warned Arkansans not to be misled by those who would use such "misinformation" to stimulate fear and block change.

But as her poll numbers plummeted and her position shifted sharply to the right, Lincoln herself quickly became a purveyor of misinformation, particularly concerning the public option. In a September speech at the University of Arkansas medical school, the senator described a bill that does not exist. "For some in my caucus, when they talk about a public option they're talking about another entitlement program, and we can't afford that right now as a nation," she said. "I'm not going to vote for a bill that's not deficit-neutral, and I'm not going to vote for a bill that doesn't do something about curbing the cost in the out years, because it would be pointless ... I would not support a solely government-funded public option."

As Lincoln certainly knows by now, because she claims to have read every page of the pending bills, the public option is neither an entitlement nor solely government-funded, but is to be financed with premiums from its beneficiaries. As for the cost of reform, she also knows that the Senate bill saves hundreds of billions of dollars over the next two decades, according to Congressional Budget Office scoring.

Running away from reform, Lincoln looked weak rather than thoughtful, and cowardly rather than centrist. Her numbers have not improved, and the Republicans are mocking her as a flip-flopper. The damage to her standing among Democrats could make the difference on Election Day, because many voters who pulled the lever for her in 2004 will simply fail to show up. A Democratic state senator who has supported Lincoln in the past told me that she recently sent a message to Lincoln's office: Healthcare is a "line in the sand," not just another issue.

It was Bill Clinton who uttered the most pungent criticism of Lincoln in recent days, however, although he didn't mention her by name. Speaking at a luncheon to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the opening of his presidential library in Little Rock on Wednesday afternoon, he berated the opponents of reform for preserving a system that spends far more than other developed countries for worse care -- at least $900 billion annually, according to his back-of-the-envelope calculations.

Clinton asked his audience, which included hundreds of Democratic donors and activists, to imagine a scenario in which he could somehow run for a third term as president (which drew enthusiastic applause). Then he asked them to consider what would happen if he offered the following campaign promise:

"If you elect me again, the first thing I'm going to do is put a $900 billion tax on you ... I'm going to have the government print the money, and put it on elevated flatbeds, and display it along the national mall. And we're going to broadcast this ceremony on national television. And then I'm going to motor myself from one end of that $900 billion to the other, sprinkling Kerosene on it, and then I'm going to set it afire and watch it burn.

"How many people do you think would vote for me?" he demanded. "If you don't want to reform healthcare, that is your position. That is what you are advocating."

Lincoln wasn't there, but she could have heard the roaring laughter all the way back in Washington.

The next day, in his first radio broadcast after resigning from the news network, he appealed directly to independent voters, whom he said "dominate the registration rolls in this country for the first time," and went on to criticize President Obama as a leader who "focuses on the partisan and racial" in a "21st century post-partisan, post-racial society."

Having observed the former CNN anchor for many years, including a number of recent appearances on his nightly broadcast, I suspect that he may well nurture ambitions to run for president, as reported in the trade press -- and could mount a formidable campaign drawing upon the same resentful remnant that Republicans hope to mobilize in 2012. Except that he probably won't be running as a Republican.

 Thanks to the crusade mounted against him by Media Matters for America, Presente.org and  a host of other progressive and ethnic organizations, Dobbs is known most widely these days for his inflammatory attacks on illegal immigrants. Stoking nativist paranoia, he has blamed undocumented workers for problems both real and imaginary, from lost jobs and violent crime to increasing leprosy and conspiracies against U.S. sovereignty. On more than one occasion, he has encouraged far-right suspicions about Barack Obama's citizenship, allowing the "Birthers" to spout their theories on a network that had already discredited them (even on his own program). As those incidents were documented repeatedly and amplified by his critics, the tension between Dobbs and CNN executives inevitably rose toward a breaking point.

 But in Lou's own mind, at least, there is more to the Dobbs brand than stoking white fears and resentments. Unlike Patrick Buchanan, a populist who more or less admits that he is a racist and Nazi sympathizer, Dobbs resents accusations of prejudice (and happens to be married to a Mexican-American woman -- with whom he lives on a 300-acre horse farm in New Jersey).

 The image that he has crafted for himself over the past several years is "Mr. Independent," an identity that has always seemed more appropriate for a political candidate than a news anchor. Mr. Independent is a star-spangled superhero, dazzling enemies with his ferocious smile as he restores truth, justice and the American Way to a grateful "independent nation." If that sounds like a ridiculous exaggeration, check out his Web site.

 It is true that LouDobbs.com provides much of the same right-wing rhetoric available from Rush Limbaugh or Fox News Channel, featuring guests such as Mike Huckabee, Bill Donohue and Frank Luntz. Glancing at the Web site or listening to him on the radio makes Dobbs appear to be a "lifelong Republican," as he has occasionally described himself in the past. He lambastes ACORN, the "national liberal media," Nancy Pelosi, "government-run healthcare" and, of course, Barack Obama, all in the usual frothing style.

 Yet there is much about his fundamental outlook that simply cannot fit within the Republican party today -- and in no fewer than three bestselling books, he has poured scorn upon the GOP and its free-market idolatry. His skepticism of open borders has long extended to trade as well as immigration, and he has fervently denounced the corporate greed that led to the outsourcing and offshoring of millions of American jobs. That pugnacious attitude won him the George Kourpias Award for Excellence in Labor Journalism from the International Association of Machinists in 2004. ("We would canonize him if we could," said the union's president as he presented the award to Dobbs.)

He despises corporate lobbyists, complains about corporate tax evasion, and has supported public financing of elections. He blasted the banking and credit card industries for pushing through the bankruptcy "reform" that ruined families while fattening their profits. In the past he has even criticized Republicans for promoting cultural warfare over abortion and gay marriage, although he recanted last September with a groveling address to the Values Voters Summit (another possible signal of an incipient candidacy).

 Does the Dobbs catalog of outrage make sense as a political platform? Or is he merely another demagogue who encourages dangerous bigotry without offering any real solutions?

 As anyone who has debated him will acknowledge, Lou is smart and informed as well as skillful and telegenic -- all of which makes his pandering to the Birthers and the bigots even more disappointing. But the history of third-party movements in modern American presidential politics, from Ross Perot to Ralph Nader to Buchanan, suggests that those who should fear him most are his fellow conservatives.

 Not only would he be capable of splitting at least some of the right-wing "tea-bagger" vote away from the GOP, but he might insist on exposing the most damaging effects of the market idolatry that has hypnotized the Republican establishment. Speaking of that establishment on his morning-after radio show, Dobbs warned against the Republicans as "absent" and "inadequate" in the "contest of ideas and values," while promising to "recommit ourselves" to "a contest of ideas in the open and public arena, unconstrained by notions of orthodoxy or political correctness."

 He sounds like he's running already.

Hadassah Lieberman has long billed herself as an advocate for women's health, even when her corporate career scarcely justified that description. But in her current position as a "global ambassador" at Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world's biggest breast cancer charity, the senator's wife is indeed serving a worthy cause.

According to a Komen official, her role as a global ambassador includes "speaking engagements, networking in the public and private sectors, and direct engagement in the areas where we work," as well as supporting the efforts of the organization's "Global Promise Fund," which raises money to support Komen's efforts around the world. (Last summer she co-hosted a fundraising lunch at the Republican National Convention that raised eyebrows.) The same spokesperson indicated that Hadassah Lieberman is "not an employee" of Komen, meaning that she isn't paid, although her husband's 2008 Senate financial disclosure shows that she received "more than $1000" from the charity. 

But whatever Hadassah actually does for Komen, the question that women might ask is whether she brings its important messages home to Joe. Has she explained, for instance, that thousands of uninsured and underinsured women die every year because so many don't get timely preventive care or treatment for their cancers? Has she pointed out that healthcare reform is of special importance to women, cancer patients and cancer survivors? Did she tell him why her organization is demanding the same health insurance reforms -- such as guaranteed provision of coverage and elimination of preexisting condition limitations -- that his Republican allies are determined to prevent?

The easiest way for Hadassah to educate Joe on these matters would be to direct him to the Web site of the Komen Advocacy Alliance, which outlines the benefits of healthcare reform for breast cancer patients and survivors. Without taking a position on the public option, Komen decries the fact that 46 million Americans have no insurance and clearly endorses guaranteed and affordable health coverage for all. During the congressional recess last August, the organization urged its supporters to lobby hard for universal coverage and strong regulation of the insurance industry.

Healthcare reform, argue the Komen advocates, must require the insurance companies to "offer health insurance to everyone even if they are waging an expensive battle with cancer," and to make sure that they "cannot charge higher premiums because of a person's preexisting condition or current health status," or drop coverage "if someone becomes seriously ill and must renew any policy as long as the policyholder pays his or her premium in full." Aside from stopping the public option, these reforms are precisely what the Republicans hope their friend from Connecticut will help them to kill.

When Lieberman appeared on "Face the Nation" last Sunday, he reiterated his position that stopping reform altogether would be better than passing a bill with the public option. "Nothing is better than getting that," he  said. "We ought to follow the doctors' oath and say, 'First, let's do no harm.' "

But doing nothing is doing grave harm, as the ladies at Komen would sharply remind him. "Early detection is the key to survival," notes their healthcare reform site. "When breast cancer is detected early, the five-year survival rate is 98 percent" -- but "those who are uninsured or underinsured are more likely to skip potentially life-saving cancer screenings." The National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program, which serves such women, lacks enough funding to screen 80 percent of them -- and even for women with insurance, co-payments can discourage screenings that would save lives. That is why the Komen position paper insists that insurers "must cover services like mammography and Pap smears with little or no cost-sharing for patients," in contrast to the Republican position that would allow the insurance companies to eliminate such mandates.

Like any supportive husband, Joe Lieberman shows up at Komen events, such as the organization's Race for the Cure in Manhattan last September. No doubt he thinks that breast cancer is bad and that his wife's work against it is good. But his current pandering to the insurance and drug lobbies -- which used to pay her -- cuts directly against the work she is doing today.

Ironically enough, Hadassah Lieberman was out of the country, on a working trip with Komen founder Nancy Brinker, when her husband started barking about a filibuster. (Even more ironically, she was traveling in Israel, a nation that has enjoyed a European-style universal healthcare system for many years, partially subsidized by American taxpayers and supported by politicians of all parties.)

Now that she's back in town, perhaps Hadassah will do something that could help women far more than any photo op or speech (and far more than anything she did when she worked for Hill & Knowlton, Apco Associates or Pfizer). She needs to tell her husband that if he cares about women's health, he will get out of the way of healthcare reform.