Quote Originally Posted by Culpeper View Post
Have you not been listening the current President or its Administration? If there is one thing they have been forthwith since the beginning about is the long term commitment that is needed.
I wish the current President and Administration the best of luck, but you and I certainly agree that a truly sensible strategic handling of Iraq will necessarily extend well beyond their tenure. I try to avoid talking about the current Prez and Admin whenever it doesn't seem germaine, given the passions those folks stir. Please interpret my omission of them as neither positive nor negative commentary on them or their strategies, but rather avoiding unnecessary fireworks where possible.

Quote Originally Posted by Culpeper View Post
.Biden is no Mecca to justice and fortitude. Biden's only enemy is the Republican Party.
In the last Dem debate, Biden seemed to me to be the only one of the Dem bunch who didn't simply throw red meat out to the audience; he seemed more realistic (and unpopularly so, given the audience of such a debate) than any of the other Dem candidates. He was definitely not on the same page as (say) Richardson or Clinton.

I'm trying to form a sense of which one of these characters--Dems or Republicans--is perhaps worth supporting. And, for me, some strategic seriousness in their thinking about Iraq will be key. I don't know why I should expect such seriousness in a televised debate...or perhaps in any public announcement during primary season, since at this stage of the political game their most important audience is their "base". Perhaps we must be stuck waiting until after nominations are sown up to hear anything remotely serious.

Yet Biden did sound strategically serious in the last debate...To me he publicly posed the right political question (essentially, "How do we proceed so that I don't have to end up sending your current ten-year-old son back to Iraq eight years from now"), a question none of the other Dem candidates even seemed willing to pose, much less entertain. Biden's answer to that question may be wrong (for instance, Turkey may not stand for a loose Federal way out so perhaps that political vision for Iraq is flawed from the get-go), but any candidate willing to even pose it publicly at a current Dem debate is showing some political guts, I think.

Of course, the real reason I asked is that y'all may know of something serious coming out of any of the candidates...and I would be interested in anything like that.