Half full or half empty?

Matt Yglesias takes an upbeat look at the tepid response of the Dems to Petraeus' testimony:

From the vantage of the morning after, though, leading with the House -- and in particularly, with the mind-numbing combo-hearing format -- may have been a stroke of genius. The was was incredibly unpopular on the morning of September 10, 2007 so the Republicans needed not just a solid performance, but some kind of show-stopping one from Crocker and Petraeus to turn things around. A dull hearing guaranteed that the game would end in a draw, and a draw is a political win for the Democrats. The Senate Foreign Relations hearing that's about to stop should feature more interesting moments -- what will Hagel say? how will Obama do? etc. -- but it's a second day story.

The "surge" itself was hail mary strategy, and it didn't work. Then we had the surge of dog and pony shows, but that didn't bring anyone other than Michael O'Hanlon over to Bush's side. Now the surge of testimony has begun, and it looks to be, in essence, another dud. Something the administration's dead-ender supporters can feel good about, but that's not going to change the public's accurate perception that if ever there were a time when this policy could have been saved, it came and went years ago.

On the other hand, Publius doesn't think that the point was to make an impression on the electorate at large. Bush knows he's already lost them. The point was to make a strong enough case to hold the base. That's why he had Petraeus and Crocker go on Fox News. Who else listens to Fox News except the base? My guess is that this worked to secure enough of the base to make sure that Bush can ride the war till the end of his term and leave the disaster to the Dems so they can take the blame for it.