Less than 30,000? Raoul, I wish we would but I just can't believe it.

Have we even made it below the 130,000 mark yet?

My history is a bit fuzzy but isn't this the reverse of how we got into Vietnam? First send in "advisors" that only advise, but if need be take part in action. Next step was to have a QRF or two. Just curious.

Oh, I'm quite sure he's been talking to people such as Wesley Clark, though I'm rather interested in how anyone would consider that an advantage.

Right. Because a patriotic American should respect the military and those who serve(d), unless of course they are Democrats, then the righties feel free to treat them like crap.

On the other hand, we are blowing through a lot of money there every month that is badly needed at home. Our economic problems have reached the point where they have national security implications, and that is something we have to address.

First off, don't act like Obama just started talking to military people.

Oh, I'm quite sure he's been talking to people such as Wesley Clark, though I'm rather interested in how anyone would consider that an advantage.

And actually, where I've been critical of Obama has focused on where he's been giving the impression that he was going to satisfy the wildest wet dreams of the extreme left. I'll give him credit for recognizing that's an unrealistic goal, but I wonder if the country wouldn't have been better served if he'd admitted that point openly, say, back in July, instead of playing both ends against the middle, as he did.

Second, you guys are simply forgetting what he said. He's always said that the pullout would be done carefully, and would leave behind an unspecified number of troops. Many people asked how many this would entail but he would indeed never actually answer that part of the question.

I would agree that the timeline has appeared to have changed. The fact is, the American people don't want to be there indefinitely with permanent bases, which is what the neoconservative plan was and has always been.

And typically people are lining up to fault Obama for doing the mainstream thing. Again, if we take the premise that he should have done something worse (an immediate and arbitrary withdrawal?), we can fault him for doing something that a Republican might have done.

(Have you given him a hard time for NOT using a Koran at the inauguration yet?)

has reached the conclusion that I reached nearly a year ago: that now President-Elect Obama’s statements on ending the war in Iraq were self-contradicting. On the one hand he spoke of removing combat troops but on the other he spoke of continuing to pursue objectives, e.g. training, going after terrorists, that could only be achieved with combat troops. It made sense politically but little sense logistically.

First Dave, there seems an editing error here you may want to address.

Secondly, yeah, that does seem the case. As we see with just about everyting he's been doin since he showed up, the political need is always first, and everything else is secondary. THeyn again, that now leaves the Democats in the position of trying to lower expectations,after promising everyone a magic pony in their garage by next Tuesday.

since Iraq has vanished from our front pages, except for rare cases like the shoe-throwing incident,

Yeah, it's the pattern we've seen for years now. If it make Bush look bad, it leads. Otherwise, it gets buried in the clutter, if it runs at all.