The Maria Meeting.

Senator Maria Cantwell met with a group of anti-war activists, including those who recently sat in at her Seattle office to protest her stance on Iraq. Arthur Ruger has a fairly thorough, and, I think, impressively balanced eyewitness report at WashBlog.

An 'out now' kinda guy going in, Ruger came away unchanged...

I came out of the meeting convinced that Maria is wrong and I am right about Iraq.

...but not unimpressed (my emphasis).

But I also came out of the meeting convinced that where she is wrong has never made her more culpable than any other Democrat AND Republican who voted foolishly when even the dumbest old Veteran in Bay Center, Washington knew that Bush as a viable and effective president was lying through his teeth and had nothing but foolish, unjustifiable and unworthy reasons for taking this country down a road of military shame that would make this nation guilty of the ultimate humanitarian horrors

I also came out of the meeting convinced that Maria is in the right place at the right time. There are no other candidates out there of equal caliber. Those who have presented themselves have not demonstrated any knowledge of how to run, let alone how to lead, how to inspire and how to engender confidence that someone more competent should be at the wheel.

Our competent someone may have not chosen the best route regarding Iraq but she's headed in the right direction and - "it looks to me like ..... " she has the tools to help us get there and may surprise those of us who think she won't.

Nothing is as helpful as turning over the damn cover and reading the book.

I agree with Ruger. Maria is wrong about the war. Not, though, as so frequently charged, because she supports "Bush's war." Maria's position is grounded in Clinton, not Bush, foreign policy. She has been critical of the conduct of the war, the treatment of soldiers and veterans and the paucity of oversight under Bush. The call for transition, rather than withdrawal, may not satisfy all of us, but it's not Bush's policy, it's the policy formulated, however loosely, by the Democratic Congressional caucuses.

It's also, in essence and effect, the policy advocated by Darcy Burner, who I suspect has the support, for good reason, of most of Maria's critics.

If you believe Kos and Jerome (and that's an if about the size of Bush's big fish), then the blogospherian gate crashers aren't bound by ideology, but are, rather, all about the more pragmatic matter of winning elections. Nothing good will happen, after all, until we get new Congressional majority.

The next Senator from the state of Washington will be either Maria Cantwell or Mike McGavick.

Which side are you on?