When you ask these guys about a plan for withdrawal, it's not a matter that, "Okay, some day we're going to have to get out of there, so what are you thinking?" It's not about a DoD that's "covered all bases and contingencies." It comes down to a very controversial view of the context of withdrawal. If Bush/Cheney's wet dreams come true, our withdrawal will be something like guests leaving a successful dinner party, all cheery farewells and thank-yous. If the outcome the rest of us fear comes to pass, it will be chaotic, bloody, disorganized and tragic. So, when Clinton asks for a plan, given her take on the war, she's really asking, "Have you made provisions for a full-on retreat under fire?" How can they answer this question? If they answer that no particular provisions are necessary because by the time we leave Iraq will be pacified and living under an orderly democracy, they invite the ridicule of the world. If they reveal that they have plans for a panicky airlift, they admit the possibility that things might not go as they hope. If they say they have no plan at all, we're back to the ridicule thing. So, you see, it's a lot more than the gender of the questioner, it's the question itself that is a dreadful tar baby for Gates and his DoD.

There are some instances where fast shouldn't be a priority. Would you want your heart surgeon to be famous for being "fast"? Getting the votes right is too important to let anything but accuracy be the criterion for how they're counted.

I'm sure most everyone here has seen this (Max Blumenthal's little film on chickenhawk College Republicans), but for the few who may not have (and subsequently laughed until they cried, then puked from disgust), it's worth taking up a tiny bit of space to post the link again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-QcQg4LBmU

What depresses me about the debates is this: under Bush, the presidency has become an issue of what the president believes, what he wants, what he insists on. It’s a cult of personality. What the presidency was intended to be was one of three branches of government, namely the executive. That is to say, the branch that carries out the people’s wishes as expressed through its representatives in a democratic (small "d") congress and overseen by the judiciary. All those questions about what the candidates’ convictions were about this and that played right into the idea that somehow the president is a ruler, a monarch who sets the tone and agenda for government rather than acting on an agenda set by the people. What I was dying to hear a candidate say tonight, when asked a question like, “If you are elected president, what would you do about (fill in the blank),” was a response that said, in effect, “It doesn’t matter what my personal feelings are about (fill in the blank). As chief executive of government, my job is to see to it that the will of the people is put into concrete form, not to stand on my principles, to do what I feel like doing, whether my inclinations conform to the popular will or not.” Sadly, this statement was completely absent from the responses of all the candidates.

I realize he wasn't laying down his grand view of the future, but he did enunciate all-or-nothing, black-white options concerning the United States' role in the world: if we get out of the Middle East, then we're perhaps heading toward a new Isolationism. What's wrong with just being a Good Neighbor in the world? About not spending our children's educations and everyone's health care on aircraft carriers and stealthy strike jets? Isn't that an option?

You

How right you are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFGit_tZDqs

And find a way to shut down the internet at the same time.

Does Bush always leak his speeches ahead of time? If there is indeed a clause in this gotta-do-it-now-or-the-world-ends FISA update that back-clears any and all illegal wiretappers since 9/11, I have a feeling this is a trial balloon. If there's sufficient uproar (in other words, if people have enough brain power to see what's being done), that clause will mysteriously disappear. Hey, it's worth a shot, right? I agree with those who opine that BushCo is getting a little desperate about this issue.

Everyone is writing the Times to express disgust and dismay at the way they gave Pollack/O'Hanlon a platform for their shameless self-serving propoganda. It's easy: letters@nytimes.com