Oh boy, more benchmarks!

click to enlarge Four years this war has dragged on and NOW Bush might think benchmarks could be considered: Republican congressional support for President Bush's Iraq war policy is starting to slip away, events of this week show, making it possible that by September bipartisan majorities in both houses could vote to force a U.S. military withdrawal. In the Senate, several Republican members are working with Democrats on bills that would pay for the war in Iraq through September but would require the Iraqi government to make enormous, perhaps unattainable, progress this summer to keep U.S. combat troops in their country. And in the House, members from both parties were buzzing Thursday over word that 11 GOP members went earlier this week to the White House to warn Bush their party faces an electoral debacle in 2008 if the war continues. Bush fueled speculation that he could soften his hard line against compromise with the Democratic Congress by saying he would consider performance benchmarks for the Iraqi government as part of the emergency war-spending bill under consideration. "One message I have heard from people of both parties is that benchmarks make sense, and I agree," Bush said Thursday at the Pentagon. His chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, will continue negotiating with congressional leaders "to find common ground" on benchmarks. But the kicker is, we have already had benchmarks and we have missed most of those with the exceptions of the death of Saddam and the election. I think this is more of the same frankly. And I am not a supporter of benchmarks in the first place. To me, benchmarks is just more wait-and-see when what we should be doing is pulling the troops out. If you want to benchmark that, I can compromise - withdraw 50,000 troops by the end of next back to the US and everybody else by the 23rd of May. Ok, I can live with those benchmarks.