It Is still along way tell 2012 last I looked .Maybe some what of a politic move but really it may just be how long government will take to be stronger in Iraq . It could also be some type of different political move for Rice remember she has been mentioned as a dark horse for running mate . Anyway if democrats win they will come up with a new plan anyway. I am no authority on politics but to people who say this war was not needed and people died for no reason is absorbed . they died fighting for there country just as my uncle did in italy in world war II and for the freedom of the people of Iraq .

That this is being done during the election season does not prove it's being done because it's election season. If we're going to say that, then everything Bush has ever done in the past 7 years was because it was election season because that's how long the Dems have been running against him and the Reps.

Using the election argument, is there anything Bush or Reps can do now in Iraq that would be OK and not viewed as political posturing?

I don't think so.

Sadly, the administration has so lost the trust of the American people that no matter what they did would be considered by a battered electorate to be a cynical political move.

Only William Kristol and the few remaining voices of an increasingly shrill and desperate neocon wing, will cook up some praise for it.

And here we see the problem with Dax and his ilk...Bush could tell you the sun rises in the east each day and Dax et al would say he was engaged in political posturing and that it was all some Rovian plot to allow the East Coast to get a jump on the West Coast and somehow disenfranchise Democrat voters.

No, if Bush said the sun was shining, and I saw that the sun was shining, I would believe him.

But as I said in the post you only quoted one sentence of, "the administration has so lost the trust of the American people that no matter what they did would be considered by a battered electorate to be a cynical political move."

That's the point you should address. Did the administration, or did they not, lie and use every possible deception to convince us that the Iraq invasion was justified?

Did they or did they not lie to us at every opportunity, or conceal from us the actual workings of the administration, i.e. Cheney's secret energy conference?

It's not just that I don't trust Bush because I don't trust him. I don't trust him because he has proven himself a liar, a scoundrel, and someone in whom my trust would be seriously misplaced.

You may present evidence to show that Bush didn't lie, that meetings weren't secret or that Bush and CO. are not scoundrels. If you can.

Oh I don't know. I've seen Lawmage do it in the past, but it's pretty much an exercise in futility. He's presented plenty of evidence to counter the incessant charges of lying and whatnot, but it's just so many farts in the left-wing hurricane. Doesn't really matter because, as a certain well-known radio talk show host has said: "To liberals, it's not the nature of the facts, but the seriousness of the charge that is important."

Sort of like the story I've told before about President Lyndon Johnson. Probably apocryphal, but according to the story Johnson was sitting in the oval office one day musing about how to get out a rumor of a certain Repubican Senator having sex with a sheep dog. And an aide to the President was horrified: "But, but Mr. President, we can't do that. It's not true!"

Johnson chuckled: "Oh I know it not true. I just want to enjoy watching him deny it."

That's a good story. It reminds me of another, probably apocryphal story told of George W. Bush. It seems he was sitting in the oval office one day shortly after Joe Wilson's article appearaed on the op-ed page of the New York Times.

Cheney said a good way to punish Wilson for exposing the administration's lie was to out his wife as a CIA agent and destroy her career.

A Presidential aide said "But Mr. President, if you authorized the leak, it would be wrong. It would amount to treason."

Bush chuckled "So what? There isn't jack shit they can do to me."