Great moves

Mission Accomplished. Bring the troops home on my timetable.

- Barack W. Obama

I've got to hand it to Obama and his campaign. They turned his Iraq surrender strategy completely around. In fact, for those not paying attention (90% of voters) he makes it appear that it is his strategy that is being implemented and is unchanging. Pulling out our troops was his plan all along, it just is awaiting his inauguration.

McCain's counter-punch was pretty good, too. His letter that was banned by the NYTimes paints Obama as being the same as George W. Bush.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.

This will get ugly sometime before November.