What's up with the WHIG?

Condi's appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday makes me wonder: has the White House Iraq Group stopped meeting? Rice's evasions--she can't say for sure if a conflict looms with Syria or Iran, she won't commit to even the most cautious of time lines (could it take "ten years?" Senator Sarbanes wants to know: maybe so, sez Condi)--strike me as unrelated to this administration's self-righteous refusal to answer questions. I'm worried that WHIG, the cabal that developed the marketing strategy for the war in Iraq, hasn't been meeting, lately. If the best the Secretary of State can promise for Iraq is Afghanistan, we may be in trouble:

From The Guardian

Now, she said, there were 91 regular Iraqi battalions in combat, allowing the US-backed government to hold on to areas it had taken. Following a model that had proved successful in Afghanistan, American political and military "provincial reconstruction teams" would, from next month, help Iraqis around the country train police and establish courts and essential local government services.[emphasis added]

So, what we can, at our most hopeful, imagine for Iraq is PSYOPS and collective denial? Are there still soldiers there? Who knew?

Condi's reluctance to tell rosier tales than this suggests that maybe she's on her own, now, that WHIG is no longer providing the kind of moral support for prevarication they were happy to dole out to Colin Powell . Clearly this country needs a renewed commitment to strategy. To marketing strategy. This whole "honest" approach about how "difficult" it is to fight an insurgency and train Iraqi forces and deal with the borders and the Sunnis and all, well, it's real complimicated. We need a jingle, a banner, a promise that takes advantage of our faith in our strength. We need the genius of WHIG. Where are they? What are they doing?