Rightly or wrongly, Frank Rich (in a piece called "The Audacity of Hopelessness") has applied the Iraq war model to the Democratic primary election:

WHEN people one day look back at the remarkable implosion of the Hillary Clinton campaign, they may notice that it both began and ended in the long dark shadow of Iraq.
It's not just that her candidacy's central premise -- the priceless value of "experience" -- was fatally poisoned from the start by her still ill-explained vote to authorize the fiasco. Senator Clinton then compounded that 2002 misjudgment by pursuing a 2008 campaign strategy that uncannily mimicked the disastrous Bush Iraq war plan. After promising a cakewalk to the nomination -- "It will be me," Mrs. Clinton told Katie Couric in November -- she was routed by an insurgency.

The Clinton camp was certain that its moneyed arsenal of political shock-and-awe would take out Barack Hussein Obama in a flash. The race would "be over by Feb. 5," Mrs. Clinton assured George Stephanopoulos just before New Year's. But once the Obama forces outwitted her, leaving her mission unaccomplished on Super Tuesday, there was no contingency plan. She had neither the boots on the ground nor the money to recoup.

That's why she has been losing battle after battle by double digits in every corner of the country ever since. And no matter how much bad stuff happened, she kept to the Bush playbook, stubbornly clinging to her own Rumsfeld, her chief strategist, Mark Penn. Like his prototype, Mr. Penn is bigger on loyalty and arrogance than strategic brilliance.

What's next? Despite Mrs. Clinton's valedictory tone at Thursday's debate, there remains the fear in some quarters that whether through sleights of hand involving superdelegates or bogus delegates from Michigan or Florida, the Clintons might yet game or even steal the nomination. I'm starting to wonder. An operation that has waged political war as incompetently as the Bush administration waged war in Iraq is unlikely to suddenly become smart enough to pull off that duplicitous a "victory." Besides, after spending $1,200 on Dunkin' Donuts in January alone, this campaign simply may not have the cash on hand to mount a surge.

I'm thinking part two will be titled "The Hillary Surge"? With Ickes as General Petraeus, perhaps?

I'm so excited by the Clinton war strategy that I think I just might turn on tonight's debate.

Too bad it isn't going to be narrated by Ollie North!

UPDATE: They're starting the debate and Brian WIlliams begins with the contrast...

From honor to shame in less than a week!

Hillary's stressing their differences and she's getting passionate about health care.

9:09 --They're discussing leaflets and inaccurate claims. Hillary is fixing Obama with The Look, as never before.

Obama says "we haven't whined about it" regarding the mailings from Hillary's camp.

Hillary is indignant about the health care issue, as if she takes the issue personally. (The "attack" on "my" health care plan!")

Now she's comparing Obama to Republicans....

(You go girl. With every word, you're making him look better and better.)

Obama is remaining calm and polite, Hillary alternately smirks and grimaces.

9:13 -- Once again, Obama says he won't force people. Hillary is carrying on about the need for force, and analogizes to making social security voluntary.

It's obvious that Hillary takes "her" health care personally, and Obama treats it as an issue and a goal. Their positions are not that far apart but they are not on the same page emotionally.

9:17 -- In a scolding tone, Hillary said that young people often don't want to buy health insurance.

(What's amazing to me is that they're debating over how to best take away the right to take care of yourself.)

9:21 -- And now it's NAFTA. Hillary said she always opposed it, and Obama cites her record to the contrary. They both agree that free trade agreements are bad without "worker protection," "environmental standards," and "safety standards." (Right. Cracking down on fleeing industries will make them stay in business here.)

Russert asks her whether she'll opt out of NAFTA. She says "yes unless we renegotiate." He also points out that she said NAFTA was good for New York.

9:27 -- Obama also says he'll renegotiate and basically agrees with Hillary.

Glenn Reynolds links an interesting piece on Obama's anti-American background.

Obama's women reveal his secret: he hates America.

9:37 -- Hillary says that Obama "didn't have responsibility" when he voted against Iraq. I agree with her that he was wrong, but I'm not sure why she had responsibility and he didn't. (She also snarks against Obama's invasion of Pakistan.)

Obama repeats that Iraq was a big strategic blunder, etc.

Again, Hillary wins on Iraq and foreign policy.

Obama says he's in a stronger position against McCain.

(That depends on what you think is strength.)

9:46 -- Hillary is nailing Obama's lack of foreign policy experience, stressing his lack of oversight capacity. Backpedaling a bit, Obama says he will always reserve the right to look out for American interests.

Hillary is interrupting, but it's commecial break time!

(Yay.)

9:53 -- The break is over and they just "mistakenly" showed Hillary doing her fake Obama rapture routine. Taking it all in stride, Obama opined that it was funny and pretty good humor. This prompted Hillary's cackle, which sounded exactly like my ring tone.

Obama says that he is not all talk, and explains why.

Hillary says she was having a little fun with the rapture routine, and returns yet again to socialized health care.

10:10 -- Tim Russert has not hesitated to pile it on with the questions. For Hillary:

-- Where did the $5 million come from?

Why not release the tax returns?

What about the National Archives material?

For Obama, Russert asks about Farrakhan.

Obama says he denounced him and cites examples.

Hillary says "there's a difference between denouncing and rejecting," and that Obama's denunciation wasn't enough!

With that, Obama said he was rejecting!

And with that, they took a break.

(Have to say, this'll all be great stuff on YouTube.)

10:35 -- I have to say, I liked Obama's words about not wanting "to go back to those old categories of what is liberal and what is conservative."

There was more on foreign relations, with Hillary attempting to score points about Putin's replacement, and Russia. Obama said he'd work with the international community if there was trouble.

Hillary also characterized a whole string of world problems (including Darfur, China, and Hamas) as "what we will inherit from George Bush." (The man is more powerful than I imagined, making all these problems!)

As to what they would have done differently in the Senate, Hillary said it was Iraq, and Obama said it was Terri Schiavo.

Finally, the closing. They let Hillary go last again, and it was Obama's turn to be gracious to Hillary. He allowed that she had performed "magnificently" and that she would be a better president than McCain.

Echoing her book title, Hillary said she'd be "history making" (doh!) and that having a woman as president would be a "sea change" which would change who gets to do things and what the rules are. She can actually change the country, etc.

And quite lamely (IMO) she then carried on again about health care.

The post-debate analysts don't seem to think either candidate won in any big way.

MORE: All in all, I agree with Tom Elia:

If McCain can't beat either of these two, the Repubs deserve to lose.

MORE: One last observation about tonight's debate. It strikes me that Hillary's main argument against Obama is that he is not experienced enough, but she is. Granted that he is inexperienced, exactly how does this make her experienced? Having been married to a president is hardly experience of the sort which counts, and while Hillary has served in the Senate, I don't hear her say much about solid accomplishments there. Instead, she keeps returning to one of her worst features -- her failed, illegally conceived and executed, 1993 health care plan from Hell.

As if it's an accomplishment!

Trying and failing to do something which would have been awful had it succeeded is certainly "experience," but to carry on as if it is her main accomplishment in life is unsettling, and it undercuts her argument that she is ready to serve as president but Obama is not.

What exactly are her solid accomplishments?

I'm not alone in wondering.

Adam Hanft also wondered, so he checked, and found very little:

Is she truly a beacon of experience? Because I couldn't think of a single piece of legislation that has her name stuck proudly on the front of it, no equivalent of McCain-Feingold, for example, I headed straight for her campaign website to see what glorious aspects of her vaunted experience I was missing.

Actually, I was missing nothing. There is not one single example of any legislation with her name appended to it. In fact, the page devoted to her Senate biography is a mush-mash, a laundry list of good intentions. When she talks about "sponsoring" and "introducing" and "fighting for" legislation that obviously hasn't passed, that's a smokescreen for failure. By introducing all that legislation that never makes it out of committee, she's guilty of what she accuses Senator Obama of: confusing "hoping" with doing.