When Lives Votes Are on the Line

I've been pondering Lane Core's suggestion that Sen. Kennedy's fire-breathing speech last week was an attempt to set himself up for further histrionics after a calamitous election day in Iraq (emphasis in original):

But it occurred to me today — I wish it had done so last week — that Kennedy's speech was not occasioned merely by the election in Iraq. No, it was occasioned by his expectation of a debacle in the election.

And what should I come across but an article about Rhode Island's federal representatives:

All four members of the delegation explicitly rejected the call -- from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and other war critics -- to start pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq immediately and to set a timetable for total withdrawal. But all four were cautious in their assessment of post-election Iraq, stressing that this week's advances do not guarantee a successful democracy.

Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy said he doesn't "differ with the sentiment" behind calls for bringing the troops home, "but we don't want to give up on the success that we've created."

"We've moved the ball toward the goal line here. It doesn't make sense to pull out now," said Kennedy, a son of the Democratic senator from Massachusetts and the only member of the local delegation who backed Mr. Bush's decision to invade Iraq.

It's easy to be reasonable in retrospect. Let's see how quickly that "goal line" moves — and how quickly Papa Ted manages to recast any scripts that he'd already prepared.