"During the first three months of 2008," Rosa Brooks writes in today's LA Times, "the Pew Research Center found that 'coverage of the campaign outstripped coverage of the war by a margin of more than 10 to 1,' and that most of that coverage focused on the Obama-Clinton battle."

This week, thanks to General David Petraeus's Capitol Hill testimony, the Iraq war is back in the spotlight.

The New York Times, for one, offers a bit of a blast from the past with a piece on the role of the oft-decried neoconservatives in John McCain's foreign policy thought. Meanwhile, Barack Obama is focused on highlighting his "real world" foreign policy experience (as opposed to Hillary's state-sponsored trips): his "ties to relatives in poor villages in Kenya," the "years he spent growing up in Indonesia," and, as a new addition, "a trip to Pakistan while a college student." The McCain camp's response: "As Senator Obama may know, [McCain] has actually spent some time living abroad as well."

For her part, The LA Times' Brooks argues that greater war awareness is ultimately bad news for the GOP:

A lot could happen between now and November, but at the moment, the Democrats appear poised to retake the White House and consolidate control over both houses of Congress. The economy's tailspin may also lead voters to punish the GOP -- but for most of the last seven years, the primary driver of Democratic good fortune has been the Iraq war.

That would be the conventional wisdom on the Democratic side--but others aren't so sure. Michael Gerson argues that "the debate has moved far beyond a candidate's initial support for the war....Young Obama's strongest arguments are focused on the failures of the past. The older man, by insisting on victory, is more responsible and realistic about the future." Whether the debate will strengthen and lengthen throughout the summer--or fade back out in favor of sexier topics--remains to be seen.