When Majority Leader Tom Daschle, his voice shaking with rage, demanded an apology from the president for implying that the Democrats were unpatriotic, he was correct on the merits. President Bush attacked legitimate questions about labor conditions at the Homeland Security Department with a spurious shaft of patriotism: argue about the rights of workers in this new office with the disconcertingly Soviet name, and you are “not interested in the security of the American people.”

But Daschle’s dudgeon over the politicization of this and what appears to be an inevitable attack on Iraq would have more meaning had the Democrats not fallen as deeply into the political rut.

From the beginning this drumbeat toward war has been seasoned liberally with electoral politics and marinated in oil. (Never forget which industry made the president and vice president rich before the political industry made them famous.) Presidential uber-adviser Karl Rove telegraphed strategy when he spoke to the Republican National Committee in January about the fortunes of the party in light of September 11: “We can also go to the country on this issue because they trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America’s military might and thereby protecting America.”

And so as the American people insisted on trying to return to a more normal existence after the terrorist attacks, as Osama bin Laden stubbornly refused to be taken into custody, and as midterm elections loomed, a new national-security threat was discovered to be pressing Osama… Saddam. You could almost confuse the two. The juggernaut began.

The march toward battle has never included a detailed explanation by the president of why Iraq must be attacked at this particular moment. Astonishingly, the fullest account that the American people have had of the specific threat of chemical and biological weapons has come from Tony Blair. Bush has instead traveled the country substituting the alliterative aphorism of the professional speechwriter for chapter and verse and linking national pride to the willingness to bomb Baghdad.

The Democrats responded to this largely by rolling over and playing dead, afraid they would appear weak on national defense. It was almost possible to sense them reading the polls that say that more than 50 percent of the American people support attacking Iraq. More than 50 percent is, in political parlance, a win. The lack of leadership for those who oppose going to war is so profound that one old lefty suggested the other day that Oprah ought to be asked to speak up on the subject.

Into this black hole stepped Al Gore, striding to a podium in liberal-friendly San Francisco as members of the audience hummed “Hail to the Chief.” The former vice president broke the compliant silence of the leaders of his party, saying, quite correctly, that the administration was trying to steamroll the nation into war at “high political season.” The trouble is that it is high political season for Al, too. His appearance was obviously the first stop on the 2004 Rehabilitation Tour.

From the beginning this war has been as politicized as a lobbyist’s cocktail party. If the president wanted the weighty question of armed conflict to stand apart from the jockeying of politics, he could have begun by delivering a State of the Union at War address, taking pains to spell out the answers to some obvious questions:

Why did the United States manage to live for decades with the dangers of the former Soviet Union and yet cannot practice containment with a far less formidable foe? How good is our intelligence, given its stupendous failure in the events of September 11? How will this new war affect the war on terrorism, or is it really designed to distract from its failures? Are other Middle Eastern states likely to erupt into violence, destabilizing the most unstable area of the globe? Are we prepared for other powers to follow our lead in the future and act unilaterally against another despot with weapons of mass destruction?

And what about afterward? Has any pollster asked the American people this question: do you support the military occupation of a nation that will likely devolve into chaos after its longtime leader is toppled?

To hell with the polls. They are the entrance to a hall of mirrors. The pols read them to discover what the people want; the people watch the pols to see what ought to be done. When the deaths begin–some 20-year-old who joined the service to get an education, some Iraqi woman who happened to be in the wrong spot when a smart weapon went dumb–the pollsters will ask if it was worth it. And the political leaders will be waiting to see what more than 50 percent of you think.

Call Oprah now.