is metric-happy and that COIN doesn't provide the instant hard knowledge that HIC provides. I'm equally aware that due to those factors there will be metrics. That doesn't change the fact that most of them will be flaky, will prove little, will change frequently, will be manipulated by each side in the argument and that they really will prove little.

Also suggest the the neat graphs prove that polls are metrics. Not to mention that they 'prove' the "1/3 and two year rules." Again.

The public is fickle but they want rapid results. When they do not get them, they get surly. No news there.

Quoth Tequila:
"...Most of this has been BS, quite a bit of it propagated by spokesmen in military uniform. That the American people now distrust messengers bringing what looks like more of the same happytalk should hardly be cause for dismay --- frankly it is reassuring that the American people are not willing to shut up and sing at whatever the government hands them."
Regrettably, BS is a fact of political life -- and not just in the US, it's worldwide. If people are dumb enough to pay much attention to it, I'm not terribly sympathetic. Interestingly, it is my sensing that most Americans do NOT pay much attention to it, only the politically attuned seem to do so.

In essence, I think the American people have pretty good BS detectors and that they have never, in my lifetime, been willing to sing the government tune. No news there...