IT WAS A MAINER WHO SAVED THE DAY AT GETTYSBURG FROM THE SOUTHERN FACSISTS-- CAN A MAINER SAVE OUR COUNTRY FROM THEM AGAIN?

Before Joshua Chamberlain was elected governor of Maine, he saved the day at the Battle of Gettysburg. He is Maine's most beloved historical figure, having saved the Union from the Southern slave-holding fascists. Many people have wondered in the course of the last several years if Olympia Snowe, like Chamberlain a Republican, would do likewise-- by switching parties and becoming a Democrat.

Last week she came closer than ever before. Snowe was the only Republican not up for re-election next year-- and terrified of the wrath of war-weary/Bush-weary voters-- who joined the Democrats to try to put a stop to Bush's insane and disastrous policies in Iraq.

Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky thinks many Republicans will follow Snowe's break with the Bush Regime. She told today's Washington Post "I just see the growing fear in their eyes on this." That would certainly be an apt description of Maine's other Republican senator rubber stamp stalwart and Liebermanesque Bush-Cheney backer, Susan Collins. But Snowe is doing what she thinks is right, followed the evolution of her thought and is not worried about election at this point.

Snowe's move-- long anticipated, much agonized-over-- came during a week of intense congressional debate over the war, when President Bush issued a mixed report on military and political progress in Iraq and his advisers worried that the political pressure to change course now, rather than after a full report due this fall, would prove inexorable. But Bush voiced his opposition to what he called a "precipitous" departure as Democratic leaders promised a series of votes-- and weeks of agonized debate-- until there is a change of course.

Collins has always been a junior partner to the far more intelligent and popular Snowe. Lately she has split with Snowe and adopted Joe Lieberman, the most venal and toxic warmonger in the entire Senate, as her new mentor. Snowe's new position is a major shift.

"We have arrived at the crossroads of hope and reality, and we must now address the reality. We need to send a strong message from the United States Congress on behalf of the American people that the current strategy is unacceptable and that we must move in a different course.

We are past non-binding resolutions, but we are also not abandoning the mission in Iraq. We cannot continue to keep our brave military men and women on the front lines if the Iraqi government is unwilling to put national interests above their own sectarian interests."