When Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) first signaled her support for pulling troops out of Iraq in 2005, neocon pundit Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard described her decision as a "disastrous miscalculation" that would ensure Republican control of Congress after the 2006 election.

For the first time ever, Kristol was wrong. The day after Pelosi was selected by fellow Democrats to be the next Speaker of the House, she acknowledged the critical importance that anti-war sentiment played in the Democratic triumph in a Huffington Post column entitled, "Bringing the War to an End is My Highest Priority as Speaker."

Six months later, Pelosi buckled in the face of another veto by President Bush and shepherded through the Congress a $120 billion no-strings-attached war funding package that the president can't wait to sign.

Pelosi has deployed face-saving political countermeasures by voting against—and even feigning disgust for—the legislation she helped craft ("I would never vote for such a thing"). While these tactics may placate really, really gullible dove activists, it seems that Pelosi's standing with the broad anti-war movement may be hacked at the knees. According to a very disappointed leader of the peace-wishing group Win Without War: "We were expecting more of a fight. It's as if the [2006] election never happened."

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