The mood has turned

The following description of America's Fourth of July parade comes from Maine. Middle America's support for Iraq is waning; the war is lost:

"It ran through the crowd, a spontaneous, rolling wave of solidarity more than two miles long. In total it lasted for more than an hour. While Fourth of July parade entries with a decidedly political bent are nothing new in Bar Harbor, the reaction Monday to a group protesting the loss of life in Iraq was different. In the past, peace activists usually were greeted with stony silence. As they marched Monday, carrying banners adorned with scores of small American flags and the names of more than 1,400 Americans who have died in combat, several dozen protesters were instead greeted by a wave of applause from crowds of spectators on both sides of the street. It followed the group for most of the route.

"Politicians in Washington D.C. don't need expensive opinion polls to see how deep the erosion of public support for the war in Iraq has gone. All they needed to do Monday was to watch events unfold on the streets of a small town in Maine on the Fourth of July."