Timetable

For all those who are screaming about a timetable for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, the Opinionated Bastard has one.  He got his numbers from the Brookings Institute.

Here's some news! The new goal for Iraqi security forces is 325,000, not 270,000. That means that my predicted withdrawal date of August 2006 is wrong, it will be pushed out until 2007 sometime, unless we start training troops faster. I can't tell how we're doing on that because the State Department still has the numbers from 11/16, and troops graduate once/month. So it looks like only 700 troops graduated this month, but that's wrong, they probably just graduate in a week or so.

Let's assume OB is on the money.  Won't that make for an interesting campaign in the upcoming Democratic Presidential Primary.  As things improve in Iraq as they most assuredly will, what on earth will the Democrats campaign about?  Will the mainstream press have a shred of credibility left by that time?  Will saner voices among the Democrats win out over the anti-war socialist lefties who grip the party?  The only hope left for Democrats will be for somebody to create a scandal for the Bush Administration, and I don't think the trial of Scooter Libby, assuming it comes off in time, will do it for them.  Unless the charges are dropped the defense will get to cross examine, and how instructive might that turn out to be?

Losing proposition that it's been, I predict the Democrats will cling a the strategy off demonizing George Bush and the war in Iraq, and they will lose in 2006 and again in 2008.  They are a party demanding a timetable but needing a clue.