Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, last November: "We're not going to do anything to limit funding or cut off funds."

Reid, yesterday: "There is not a thing off the table."

There's a sense out there that Democrats have been floundering on Iraq -- which may be true as far as bills-into-law go, but Pelosi's strategy of slowly bringing nervous moderates leftwards seems to be working. Last night's House vote on a bill to fully withdraw troops within 180 days, originally intended as a sure-to-fail opportunity for hard-core progressives to cast the conscience vote they didn't get on the more-nuanced supplemental, drew 171 "yes" votes, a number that even shocked its sponsor, Jim McGovern. Here's a little number-crunching for you: Twelve Blue Dogs voted yes. 27 of 41 freshman Democrats voted yes, including six (Mike Arcuri, Kirsten Gillibrand, John Hall, Steve Kagen, Carol Shea-Porter, and Tim Walz, a veteran) who hail from Republican districts. --Eve Fairbanks