I think the thing that struck me the most about the five year anniversary of the start of the Iraq War was the level of media attention to the story.

Yes, it was the lead story on Wednesday.  Yes, there were pictures of demonstrations in major cities and President Bush gave a speech defending the war from the Pentagon. 

Yes, major papers had big spreads on the origins of the war and what happened since. 

But if this had been one year ago, the atmosphere would have been much different.  At that time, Democrats in the Congress were using their new power in the House and Senate to demand a withdrawal from Iraq.

Republicans in the House and Senate were making noises about finding ways to limit the US mission.  The high casualty numbers for US forces had many GOP lawmakers worried about what was next.

I can remember the feeling of uncertainty in the hallways of the Capitol during that time.  Democrats felt like they had GOP lawmakers on the ropes, forcing them to choose between support for an unpopular war or heeding the calls from home for a withdrawal.

As late as August of last year when Congress went home for a summer break, Democrats really believed things were on the verge of change.

But the playing field shifted when the White House unveiled what's become known as "The Surge."  President Bush urged Republicans to give it time to work, the military sold it to Congress and the GOP stuck together.

Since then, casualty rates and overall violence have gone down in Iraq, while Republicans stuck with the President when it came to supporting the effort.

That's why the run-up to this 5th anniversary of the war was so interesting from the point of view of what did 'not' happen.

Democrats knew the 5th anniversary of the war was coming this week, but they didn't spend time on Iraq before the Easter break in Congress.  Instead, they battled with Republicans over terrorism surveillance, the budget, ethics legislation and more.

When Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain all came back to the Senate on the same day a week ago, the Senate was voting on the budget, not on US troop withdrawals from Iraq.

I'm not saying that Democrats in Congress have given up on ending the war.  Not at all.  But the war doesn't have the "political punch" that it had on March 20, 2007.

Had the fifth anniversary been with the conditions of one year ago in Iraq, there would have been days and days of lead-up to President Bush's speech on Wednesday from the Pentagon.

Instead, the details got very little attention until the night before when the White House released portions of his speech.

On Monday, Hillary Clinton gave a speech on Iraq, and hardly anyone in the press corps filed stories on it.  The big news Monday was about the economy.

Iraq will remain the secondary story for the rest of this election year, unless things get worse there.  It's a simple formula: the more American GI's are killed in Iraq, the more attention the story gets in the media and from the voters.