so you dispute it?

So lets walk thorugh the sylogism.

1) Was Bush against any formal staments regarding withdrawal for American forces in Iraq, including time horizons, prior to Friday 7/23?

2) Did Bush accept time horizons for American forces in Iraq on Friday 7/23?

3) Has Obama been arguing for a schedule for withdrawal of American forces from Iraq (as in from the beginning of his campaign)?

Is the idfference in this aspect of the positons the basic details of whether or not to set a detailed schedule at this time horizon?

Ah I believe the vector is clear.

And which of the various news reports between now and last Friday have you not been reading?

Sure Joel!

P.S. and who has been changing their positions?

P.P.S. now shall we talk about McCain’s changing positions AND his contradictory statements even as he changes position?

P.P.S. and with Iraqi insistence on a solid framework for withdrawal we can resist this expression of their national sovereignty how?

P.P.P.S. and now let the dance begin!

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Of course I dispute it. That is utter nonsense. Obama does not actually take “positions,” he only gives speeches.

Obama has nothing to do with what Bush’s positions are. As circumstances and needs change, new tactics may be needed, but Obama’s speeches are irrelevant to Bush’s decisions.

Obama says anything and everything he feels like no matter how much it contradicts what he said earlier (in the primaries). Sometimes, a real leader swerves into an action that Obama speculated on wildly when he was trying to please a particular audience. Then Obaamatrons start to rave over pretentions of that real leader is following Obama. It’s absurd.

Obama has propsed and re-postured down every possible path to please any and every audience he can. Bush is making policy and not paying attention to Obama’s posturing.

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but do you dispute that Bush has moved to Obama’s position with respect to withdrawal? As has McCain?

The difference of course is:

- Obama proposed this path earliest (record is clear here)

- Bush appears to be executing against this model (his adminstratio has to negotiate the agreement)

- McCain is complaining becuase he has to support it

If Obama is now leading us into defeat (a highly arguable point) so are Bush and McCain.

In short, McCain appears to be demonstrating his inability to understand circumstances and move on.

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Here’s why Bush wants Obama to win: Obama’s surrogate, Cass Sunstein, has promised not to prosecute the Bush administration crimes. That’s disgusting even to you, Joel, since you’d demand a presidlent to be true to conscience. But in addition to all his other excellencies, Obama’s expedient.

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I confess that I am sincerely disgusted with the ridiculous and cynical twists that leftists are throwing up to give Obama credit for exactly what he has constantly undermined for years now. Intellectual honesty has nothing to do with what such people will say.

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Exactly right. Maliki has signed on to Obama’s position, too. Bush is going to vote for Obama, for heaven’s sake! Where does that leave McCain? By himself. Screwed. For the next 100 years. Angrily claiming that Obama would rather lose a war than lose a political campaign!

McCain was also more extreme than Bush about Iran: Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. But now Bush is opening an interest section in Tehran! Another way in which Bush is kneeling before Obama.

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I agree diplomacy includes bribery. The Sunni were bribed and AQI disappeared hence diplomacy succeeded and the surge was only a minor influence.

As for the ambiguity of a residual forces here’s where tactical considerations to the facts on the ground come into play. Obama’s plan fulfills the need for withdrawal framed within a response to conditions. I believe his plan has the better odds of a clean withdrawal and a “mission accomplished” than the Republican non-plan which will probably end with helicopter ride out of the green zone.

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why I believe this is almost exactly what I thought I understood Peter Leavitt to have said!

If I rememebr right, PL kept focusing on how it was our change of tactics which changed the nature of the violence.

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What? You don’t read your own writing?

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An escalation of troops could have aggravated sectarian violence if they had continued to do the things they did before the anti-insurgency strategy. Joel Mark fails to recognize that combat operations were failing and had led to an unrecognized defeat in 2007. Additional troops doing the same thing would have dug a lower circle in hell.

The key was a different mission, not additional troops.

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