The End of the Themocrats is Nigh

And it's not just me saying that:

There is an invisible civil war in the Democratic Party now underway, and it is between those who are attempting to satisfy the defeatist and pacifist left base of the party and those who are attempting to prepare the party for successful elections in 2006 and 2008.
At the center of this has been party Chairman Howard Dean, now increasingly joined by the two other party spokesmen -- Senate Minority leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
A string of bad news from the Middle East had emboldened this trio into calling for premature retreat from Iraq and thus defeat for the United States, hoping of course that the blame for the defeat would fall on President Bush and the Republican Party, which also controls both houses of Congress. Until recently, Mr. Bush remained silent to most of the criticism of the war and the repetitive allegations of deception that many Democrats have claimed got us into that war.
This combination, coupled with sudden rising gasoline prices, provoked a precipitous fall in the president's support in the opinion polls, and only further induced the three horsemen of the Middle East apocalypse -- Mr. Dean, Mr. Reid and Mrs. Pelosi -- to expound their denunciation and defeatism only louder.
We already knew that Mr. Dean was a screamer, and I warned on these pages less than a year ago that naming him chairman of the party was institutionalizing a political disaster to come. I do not doubt that Mr. Dean is sincere. This only makes his presence as the Democratic spokesman more perilous for the party's prospects. Party liberals and moderates said he would mind his fundraising and not get into trouble. Now they may have to fire him or face losing excellent electoral opportunities this year and in 2008.
Calmer heads such as Rep. Steny Hoyer and Rep. Rahm Emmanuel (House assistant minority leader and congressional campaign chair), Sens. Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman and others have tried to steer public interest away from the volatile issue of the Iraq war and toward much more fertile political ground in domestic policy issues. But none of them has the natural podia that the three apoplectic horsemen have, and a party civil war is resulting.

Americans will not vote for a party which cannot be trusted with national security. The Themocrats' day is over.