Which one of these analyses is not like the other:

Fred Barnes: "This one is pretty easy to explain. Republicans lost the House and probably the Senate because of Iraq, corruption, and a record of taking up big issues and then doing nothing on them. Of these, the war was by far the biggest factor. Unpopular wars trump good economies and everything else. President Truman learned this in 1952, as did President Johnson in 1968. Now, it was President Bush's turn, and since his name wasn't on the ballot, his party took the hit."

Susan Page: "The coalition that re-elected President Bush and bolstered Republican margins in Congress just two years ago fractured Tuesday under the weight of an unpopular war, economic unease and a series of scandals."

Dick Meyer: "On Election Day 2006, American voters did almost exactly what history would predict: giving a president in the sixth year of his administration a serious smackdown, as an electorate wary of politicians and parties hedged its bets and chose a divided government.

Since World War II, the parties that controlled the White House for two terms have lost an average of 29 House seats and six Senate seats in their second midterm elections.

This election fits tidily into that pattern."

Ron Brownstein: "For six tumultuous years President Bush has provoked intense opposition while mobilizing passionate support for an ambitious conservative agenda.

On Tuesday, that perilous strategy crumbled -- and triggered his party's abrupt fall from power."

Notice the difference? Barnes, Page and Meyer point to the specific, obvious reasons Bush and his party went down last night: mainly discontent with the war in Iraq mixed in with a bit of scandal and a historical trend that was bound to take its toll. Brownstein, on the other hand, writes that Bush "provoked intense opposition" because of his pursuit of an "ambitious conservative agenda." That's a much broader, and much flimsier argument than the others.

Bush didn't lose Independents in this election because of some "ambitious conservative agenda." He lost them because of Iraq. Period. He lost them because of his inability over the last two years to communicate dual messages to the public on the war: one of strength and one of flexibility. Instead, the public heard all the former and none of the latter, and as the situation in Iraq continued to detoriorate this year the perception hardened among Independents that the President was merely being stubborn and unresponsive.

A decent number of Independents stood with the president in 2004 when presented with the choice between Bush's tough optimism vs. Kerry's tepid defeatism, but over the last twenty four months the clock simply ran out on Bush and the "stay the course" argument with those in the middle.