Divide and Conquer

I don't think I like the sound of this from The Hill, which I came across at Talking Points Memo:

President Bush has invited leaders of the conservative Blue Dog and New Democrat coalitions to the White House Friday to discuss areas of “mutual cooperation” in the words of one Democratic Congressional aide.

The outreach comes at a time when Bush’s image on Capitol Hill and around the country has taken a serious beating. The meeting is scheduled just two days after the Iraq Study Group is scheduled to release its findings and one day after the Senate Armed Services Committee plans to hold hearings on them.

Reps. Alan Boyd (Fla.), Dennis Moore (Kan.) and Mike Ross (Ark.) will represent the Blue Dogs, a coalition of usually southern, conservative-leaning Democrats and Reps. Joe Crowley (N.Y.), Artur Davis (Ala.), Ron Kind (Wis.), Adam Smith (Wash.) and Ellen Tauscher (Calif.) are set to represent the New Democrats, a group of business-friendly centrists, at the meeting, which the president is expected to attend.

Sometimes your friends are more dangerous than your enemies. And, now we have Silvestre Reyes, newly appointed head of the House Intelligence Committee, supporting the McCain plan by calling for an increase in troop levels in Iraq.