The Democratic successes last night don't herald dramatic shifts in policy, the way the Republican 1994 triumph did.

There will be no dramatic shifts in policy. We will not bug out of Iraq. There will be no tax increase.

The president will have significant trouble getting conservatives on federal courts, including the Supreme Court - but he's had that same trouble notwithstanding the comfortable Republican margin in the Senate that disappeared last night.

And since one of the results of this election has been the election of more moderate Democrats, last night's new Congressmen will serve as a check on liberal-to-radical Dems who seem determined to turn themselves into proctologists investigating every internal aspect of the Bush administration.

Even so, this is it for Bush. This election was a remarkable reversal of the results of 2002 - when Republicans took back the Senate and improved their position in the House because Bush nationalized the midterm balloting on the issue of homeland security.

Last night, Democrats nationalized the election on the issue of Iraq in the broadest sense.

By standing in vague but passionate opposition to the president's handling of the war, they formed a new voting alliance - an alliance between doves, who think Iraq was a mistake to begin with, and one-time hawks who think Iraq was a perfectly fine thing to do in the first place, but that it's a huge mess now and Bush should pay.

Going for that anti-Iraq alliance without offering an escape plan of their own was a brilliant political tactic.

For that, and for recruiting some terrific candidates, all glory goes to New York's own Chuck Schumer, who ran the Senate effort from Washington, and to Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who did the work in the House.

Where do they go with the new alliance in forcing the president's hand on Iraq? Well, they go - nowhere.

In fact, the politics of the Iraq war are now startlingly muddy. Democrats ousted Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Senate primary in August because he was pro-war - and Lieberman won anyway last night.

An anti-war Republican, Lincoln Chafee, lost his Senate seat in Rhode Island. That lack of ideological clarity on core Democratic issues is another consequence of last night's elections. Schumer and Emanuel both understood that in certain swing states they needed to field candidates who could appeal to Republican voters.

In Pennsylvania, Indiana and Ohio, for example, pro-life, pro-gun, pro-tax-cut Democrats took seats away from pro-life, pro-gun, pro-tax-cut Republicans.

But while the picture isn't clear for Democrats over the next two years, it is pretty clear for George W. Bush.

This brings his activist presidency to a close.

Bush worked his will in Washington to a remarkable degree. Among all presidents since FDR, only Dwight D. Eisenhower got as much out of Congress during the same six-year period.

With Democrats holding some sway on Capitol Hill, Bush will no longer get his way. He will, instead, become a caretaker. And maybe, in the end, that's a good thing - because he can spend the final 25 months of his presidency focusing exclusively on securing a victory in Iraq.

And thereby turn this midterm defeat into a victory recorded by history.

jpodhoretz@gmail.com