Burnt Orange Report

A Road to Somewhere

By Jim Dallas

The Washington Post catches Kerry being realistic again.

I think there's a lot of people out there who want to hear Kerry talk about exit "strategies" (by which they seem to mean not "strategy" in the broad, true sense of the word, but rather a 400-page to-do-list) and when, to the day, we're gonna get our guys out of Iraq. Quite honestly, I think that's putting the cart before the horse.

Iraq is a huge mess, and at this point "I don't know" maybe the only reasonable answer. It may not inspire confidence, but the truth rarely does.

Candidate Kerry has committed to actually winning the war in Iraq. That may or may not be doable, but I admire the fact that the focus is on results and not on arbitrary deadlines. We really have only one chance to get this right (if we're going to do it at all).

Now, turning to another issue domain, I wish Kerry would apply the same realism to economics. One of the more absurd things Kerry has done is promising the creation of "10 million new jobs."

Admittedly, the "10 million new jobs" claim is not as implausible and hokey as Bush's repeated insistence on enshrining June 30/July 1 as the "handover date" in Iraq.

But still, I'd rather the president dwell on the substance of an issue instead of set overtly-political-yet-otherwise-arbitrary deadlines/quotas.