Now you understand why the Pentagon was so upset by the bureaucratic snafu that led to the release of those casket photos. It looks like Messrs. Ledeen ("I think the level of casualties is secondary") and Kristol ("I think the American people are going to have great tolerance ... for more casualties.") may have been a little too optimistic about the public's taste for blood. (American blood, I mean. As in Vietnam, Americans appear perfectly willing to fight to the last Iraqi.)

http://billmon.org/archives/001429.html

How low does the credibility of the U.S. government have to sink before support for the war collapses entirely? After Tet, everyone understood -- even if they rarely admitted it -- that the United States was fighting simply to postpone the political and psychological aftermath of defeat. Have we now reached that point in Iraq? Or are there too many illusions left that still need to be destroyed?

But, gluttons for punishment (other people's punishment) that Americans are, the endgame might not play out so simply. The speed with which public opinion has turned against the war could just be another cultural artifact of our increasingly scatter-brained society -- in which the daily death toll is tucked away somewhere between the next American Idol and the latest pretrial developments in the Michael Jackson case.