Timetable? What Timetable?

So, after a week of beating up the Democrats for being a bunch of cheese-eating cut-n-runners, it turns out that the White House has been planning for troop reductions in Iraq the whole time, and — gasp — even has a timetable that conveniently coincides with the fall elections.

The response from the Democrats is justifiable outrage at the political low-blow, and the reaction of the White House is, basically, that their timetable isn't really a timetable.

"We are entering a phase where discussions with the Iraqis will begin to practically define what 'stand up, stand down' will look like over the next two years," said this [White House] official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal conversations.

…"A conditions-based strategy outlined by our generals on the ground is a far cry from politicians in Washington setting an arbitrary date for withdrawal," the official said.

It's truly remarkable that anyone takes the "as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down" line seriously anymore. Bush has been using this phrase for at least a year, during which our troop levels have remained basically unchanged. The charitable take on this fact is that either the Iraqis haven't done any standing up, or things have gotten so much worse that we can't do any standing down. Neither option really represents freedom being on the march and stuff.

As for that whole "conditions-based strategy" that the White House keeps going on about… oh, please. As long as Bush refuses to tell us exactly what those conditions are, that's just another throw-away line. Every couple of months Bush stands behind his podium in the Rose Garden and tells us how corners are being turned and milestones have been reached, and yet, all that "progress" leaves us in the exact same place.

Thus, Bush's conditions-based standing-up-and-down policy means exactly nothing. There are no public criteria in place, no advertised situational triggers, no leading indicators to drive policy. As Bush so eloquently put it, he is the "decider", which means he gets to decide about those conditions and the standing around and all that — not you. You don't even get to second-guess those decisions, because Bush alone claims to know when the time is right to act. It's all one big "trust me", and if you don't, you're a traitor.

So while the White House tries to figure out how to act on a timetable without really having one, how to pull out of Iraq while still staying the course, and how to convince the public that it's doing something when it really isn't, the bad stuff just continues to happen every damn day. Oh wait — we've reached a turning point, and the next six months will be key. I guess I was wrong — thank goodness there is light at the end of the tunnel.