Barack Obama may be trailing behind Hillary Clinton in the polls significantly these days, but he can still grab headlines when he makes a few choice words. Case in point, in an attempt to show bipartisanship Obama has "reached out" to a few Republicans. From the AP:

"Among the Republicans he would seek help from are Sens. Richard Lugar of Indiana, John Warner of Virginia and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Obama said.

"On foreign policy I've worked very closely with Dick Lugar," Obama said. "I consider him one of my best friends in the Senate. He's someone I would actively seek counsel and advice from when it came to foreign policy."

This is about as hollow as it can get. Basically, Obama is holding hands with Republicans who have become nervous about what the Iraq War may do for their re-election campaigns. If they keep getting notoriety from friends like Obama, a serious primary challenger will probably emerge on the GOP ticket in these states.

When President Bush backed the immigration bill, he not only lost a lot of his base but left an opening for wavering legislators to drop support on other issues without facing political blowback:

Sen. Pete Domenici (N.M.), a 36-year Republican veteran of the Senate, abandoned President Bush's Iraq war policy today by publicly endorsing legislation designed to withdraw nearly all U.S. troops from Iraq by March 2008.

Domenici has been a backer from the beginning but now sees that the war could well be a liability. He saw that conservatives bailed on the Kennedy/Bush/McCain immigration bill and figured he could come out against the Iraq war without much criticism as the base is divided.

The door was opened by Sens. Richard Lugar and John Warner and I would imagine that there will be several more jumping ship after Domenici. The fact that the war is an important part of the overall anti-terror strategy means nothing when it comes to political maneuvering by seasoned senators like Domenici.

That is what Sen. Joe Biden called it yesterday in CNN's "Situation Room" anchored by Wolf Blitzer. The Democratic presidential candidate said he thanked Sen. Richard Lugar in a phone call for his departure from the president's Iraq policy. He also told Lugar he would be part of an bipartisan effort to get the U.S. out of "this mess" (his words) if President Bush wanted to do that.

What I find most striking about Biden's interview was that he did not back away from his earlier statement that he would NOT cut off funding for our soldiers in favor of a timeline. I appreciate that Biden, even as a Democrat, wants to keep our soldiers safe and that awakened my interest in him a couple weeks ago.

The Biden-Gelb plan for Iraq sure sounds good. However upon further research of Biden's plan on Iraq on his Web site I have to say it would be very hard to follow through with this plan. After all Biden is not running for president of Iraq. (insert sarcasm) On the one hand, he calls for us to get out of the Iraqi civil war. On the other hand he presents his Iraq plan as if he would be in charge of Iraq if he were elected U.S. president. I think it ought to be up to the Iraqi government on how to establish a secure Iraq, not to our government.

I do want to wait for the results of the troop surge -- which will supposedly be announced in September. But I do have to say that l found it refreshing that Biden has the safety for our troops in mind even so he is calling for a withdraw of troops. It shows after all that you can be indeed for our troops even so you are against the war in Iraq.

To read the news stories and blog posts about Senator Richard Lugar's speech on Iraq, you'd think that Harry Reid's new best friend was advocating something along the lines of the Iraq policy favored by the Senate Majority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, and anti-war groups like Code Pink. Not so. In fact, contained in Lugar's speech is this statement:

A total withdrawal from Iraq also fails to meet our security interests. Such a withdrawal would compound the risks of a wider regional conflict stimulated by Sunni-Shia tensions.

So let's look at what Senator Lugar is actually proposing in his speech -- the four goals of his new policy of redeployment, and if they'd be accomplished by giving up on the surge that has only just started.

First, we have an interest in preventing Iraq or any piece of its territory from being used as a safe haven or training ground for terrorists or as a repository or assembly point for weapons of mass destruction.

If we redeploy our forces and concentrate our efforts on training Iraqis, we will be immediately be ceding huge parts of Iraq to al-Qaida and Shia extremists. They will be able to get a firmer foothold and will be more difficult to fight, not less. If we have learned anything from the war so far it is that you can't achieve your goals from afar, via air power or long distance raids. Clear and release does not work in an asymmetrical war - the terrorists hide until we leave, then come back stronger than ever. Clear and hold, the new policy that we have switched to under the surge, is the only way to develop stability until the Iraqis can take over.

Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has seen enough. He doesn't need to wait until September, October, or next April to come and go before rendering his judgment. No, the Indiana Senator knows the surge isn't working.

"In my judgment, the costs and risks of continuing down the current path outweigh the potential benefits that might be achieved. Persisting indefinitely with the surge strategy will delay policy adjustments that have a better chance of protecting our vital interests over the long term."

Strangely, however, Lugar says this diagnosis does not mean that he would back Democratic legislation for setting a troop withdrawal deadline. Get that? According to Lugar, the current plan isn't working. Check. Our best strategic hope is to reduce and re-deploy our forces. Check. But given the White House refusal to do so, congress must not force the president's hand.

The next few months are going to be a very strange time in American politics. Don't count on Lugar being the last GOP member to declare the surge yet another failed strategy. Really, the only question is how long these Republicans will stick to partisan allegiance in the face of what most everyone in the country knows to be true.

Let's not kid ourselves. The surge of 20,000 U.S. troops into Baghdad and the Anbar Province may indeed help stem the violence in those two trouble spots for a time, but as we know from recent events, Iraq as a nation is a house of cards. When we stick in our finger to plug the leaking dike, another spout erupts.

Yesterday, a messianic Shiite cult came very close to overwhelming the Iraqi army in Najaf. Without emergency help from U.S. forces, they may have succeeded in assasinating Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and in the process set off a powder keg of reprisals that no amount of reinforcements would be able to stop.

This morning, we see more evidence of the spread of violence away from the capital and Anbar. To Najaf, we can add The Kurdish city of Khanaqin, the Shiite city of Mandalin, and towns in the Diayala Province. All were targeted today. And will this not be the norm in the coming days and months? Reports of more bombings and sectarian religious killings outside of "surge" areas? By no means should this eventuality surprise us. Don't forget, Moqtada al-Sadr has some 25,000 loyalist fighters in Basara, in addition to those he commands in Baghdad and Najaf.

No, the surge wasn't the first plan to save Iraq, and it won't be the last.