Hillary: Level With America Mr. Bush

by Steve Soto

With Obama planning a new address on Iraq today, and with Bush planning to take credit tomorrow for supposedly reducing our troop levels next summer down to pre-surge numbers, Hillary pre-empts both of them with a letter to the White House today. She asks him to not spin tomorrow's announcement as something special, when in fact he is only un-doing the surge because of deployment constraints. She asks him to level with the American people about our challenges in Iraq, and to use his authority to draw down troops even further while changing course.

Bush won't do any of these things of course, and instead will say that the surge is working just fine. And John McCain will take the credit and say he was right all along. But at least Hillary got out in front on this and set up her own announcements on Iraq later. By rightly waiting until Obama speaks today and Bush speaks tomorrow, Hillary can see what they say and then offer her own approach last, hopefully by pointing out the strategic errors in both Bush and McCain's boasting. But if the advance look of Obama's speech is any indication, she will have her work cut out for her.

Hat tip to TPM