You just need to ask which war?
When Lindsey Graham (E-SC) claims that "Zarqawi's death was a sea change. We're now making some progress. If we do shows every Sunday talking about every mistake, we're going to lose this war." at the same time the US embassy in occupied Iraq is sending back memos that strongly imply that Iraq is so far gone that going to hell in a handbasket would be an improvement, you might sensibly assume that the Evil Party has completely lost touch with reality.
Well, no. Sure, the benign explanation for their reverse-midas touch is simply that they're a bunch of bloodthirsty delusional sadists whom the great despots of world history would feel somewhat uneasy about being around, but I don't think that's the correct explanation. Lindsey Graham mentioned something in Iraq, so you might think that he's talking about Iraq, but in reality Iraq doesn't matter to the thugs who run the United States. The people who run the United States don't really think that Iraq is a real place; it's simply a hot sandy trough where well-connected friends of the B*sh junta can bloat their bank accounts beyond the dreams of avarice.
No, the "war" they're talking about is their war against the pesky representative government in the United States, where if people keep talking about the torture, the government-approved atrocities, the death camps, and the slow but steady growth of Hobbesian states that spring up wherever Maximum Leader Genius sets his blood-soaked standard, it's possible that people will get so disgusted with the slaughter that they might throw the bums out before the Evil Party has finished infiltrating the Stupid Party. And that would be bad, because there are still hundreds of well-connected friends of the B*sh junta who don't have their tenth gold-filled swimming pools yet.
Just remember that as far as the Republican Party is concerned, the rest of the world doesn't exist, and it's all a battle for the hearts and nasty prejudices of the US electorate. When they talk about winning the war, their enemy is the American people.
(link to Lindsey Graham speech via Echidne of the Snakes)