My Opinions In The L.A. Times!

No, nothing I wrote has gotten into the L.A. Times. It's just that they agree with me.
I heard President Bush's press conference yesterday morning - in between off-the-cuff comments bullying the reporters, he emphasized several times that we couldn't leave Iraq until our mission was completed there. He wouldn't say how to win, but he insisted that the way not to win was to pull out before the job was finished.
So it was great to see an editorial this morning entitled "FINISH WHAT JOB?" This has been gnawing at the walls of my craw for a while, the fact that when anybody talks about success in Iraq, they never seem to concretize what the hell success might be. We are supposed to keep our troups in until, what, they've achieved zero crime, zero terrorism, are one-hundred percent democratic and they respect women's rights? Hell, WE'D be occupied under those terms! So why won't anybody publicly draw the line? They can't claim the enemy would be aided by knowing how we define its defeat. That's crazy talk.
I give the WH Press Corps credit for finally asking the tough questions, and I give Bush credit for not ordering their immediate execution. (I think Rove looked into it and decided it would be bad strategy.) But man oh man, why are we waiting until NOW to have this public dialogue? The New American Century that the neocons dreamed about appears to be the length of time we'll spend doing damage control for this administration.