Karl Rove certainly teed up Bush's Iraq speech tonight. Six days after he accused liberals -- especially MoveOn.org -- of being weak in responding to 9/11, MoveOn today launches a $500,000 TV and print advertising campaign calling to bring home US soldiers from Iraq. ("We got in the wrong way," the ad states. "Let's get out the right way.") As if on cue, Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R) sent out a statement yesterday calling the ad "an utter disgrace." "To politicize the War in Iraq at this critical juncture," she said, "emboldens the enemy and does so at the peril of our men and women in uniform. I hope my colleagues from both sides of the aisle will join me in disavowing this poisonous ad."

A MoveOn spokesman strikes back at Sen. Dole, saying that if she has a problem with MoveOn, she also has a problem with fellow North Carolina Republican Rep. Walter Jones, who has called for timetable to bring home the troops.

That exchange provides part of the political backdrop to Bush's 8:00 pm primetime speech tonight on Iraq, to soldiers in Fort Bragg, NC. Other elements include two new national polls, both of which contain some troubling numbers for the Administration; Democratic concerns that Bush is trying to politicize Iraq and link it to 9/11 ("The only way that he can stop the downward spiral [in public opinion about Iraq] is to make this become a political issue," Jenny Backus, a Democratic consultant working for John Kerry's PAC, tells First Read); and further reminders that we seem to be re-living the 2004 presidential campaign all over again.

For more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3626796/