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By Creature
When is a timetable not a timetable? When it has nothing to do with time.
Iraqi leaders have assured the United States they will stick to a timetable of measures over the next year to curb violence and allow U.S. troops to go home, Washington's top officials in Iraq said on Tuesday. [emphasis me]
We have measures, we have benchmarks, but we have no dates. Thankfully we did have a rare joint news conference to announce the news that something may have changed in Iraq, though I'm not so sure what. It's big spin-cycle news. The administration has embraced the timetable rhetoric, hollow as it may be, to show that they are flexible. To show that in the face of a huge electoral defeat they are flexible and brave enough to change the message in hopes the American people will fall for their charade once again.
Flex more.
(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)
By Heraclitus
Speaking of Andrew Sullivan, his feud with Glenn Reynolds has been one of the odder developments of the right-wing blogosphere in the past few years. There's a definite sort of post-break-up bitterness to it; it's like watching two people both trying to convince their mutual friends that the other person is totally at fault and is completely horrible. Only it's all taking place on the very public internets. Also something distinctly odd about how each attacks the other on his own blog without ever addressing him directly, choosing instead to discourse on the other's moral and intellectual failings in his absence and, of course, quote the supportive email. Very weird, but also fairly amusing.
I personally, of course, "side" with Sullivan, because, well, Glenn Reynolds. (Okay, that's not really fair. I actually like and respect Sullivan, as regular readers will know, since I frequently cite him. But Reynolds is about three beers away from being Hugh Hewitt or Michelle Malkin.) Anyways, in the course of bashing Reynolds, Sullivan provides a You Tube clip of a very cheesy GOP Senate ad in Tennessee. It's pretty dumb even for a Republican attack ad. When I think of Tennessee, I prefer to think of Lamar Alexander, or, better yet, Bob Dylan looking for Alicia Keys "even clear through Tennessee."
By Heraclitus
A new poll from ABC shows that the Iraq War is increasingly unpopular not only among Democrats and Independents but among Bush's own base.An improving economy notwithstanding, opposition to the war remains the prime issue driving congressional voter preference. And the war's critics include not just eight in 10 Democrats but 64 percent of independents, 40 percent of conservatives, 35 percent of evangelical white Protestants and a quarter of Republicans.
It matters: Among the four in 10 registered voters who favor the war in Iraq, 73 percent support the Republicans in their congressional districts. But many more, nearly six in 10, oppose the war, and 78 percent favor Democrats for the House.
Further evidence that Bush and the GOP may finally have reached the point where their ideological arrogance and incompetence shine through everything that they do, and no amount of dirty campaigning can kick up enough dust to hide that. But, of course, it ain't over till it's over.H/T: Andrew Sullivan.
