Hilary Clinton agrees with Bush!

As you know, I am a huge fan of Andrew Sullivan and his blog is must reading everyday. Here's his take on the Hilary and Dubya.

A good indicator of the way the wind is blowing in Washington is often the position of Senator Hillary Clinton. A human weather-vane, Clinton has been a long-time supporter of the Iraq war, has visited Iraq, kept close contact with the military, served on the relevant Senate committees, and made hawkish noises that helped her with her rural New York state voters, but slowly alienated her anti-war liberal base.

Now, as with the rest of Washington, she's shifting with the breeze. Yes, she recently voted against both Senate resolutions demanding immediate withdrawal or a fixed timetable for withdrawal. But last week she sent out an email to constituents, finessing things. "We are at a critical point with the December 15 elections that should, if successful, allow us to start bringing home our troops in the coming year," she wrote.

She still opposes a rigid timetable for getting out. But she has made it clear the Iraqi elections next week will be a critical milestone in the US war effort. After that the Iraqis had better step up, or the US will start stepping down.

How different is this from the position of the US President? On the face of it, George W. Bush is still insistent on fighting until "victory", but Washington's little secret is that the difference between Clinton and Bush is not much more than rhetorical. The President's major speech on Iraq last week was at least an attempt to persuade an increasingly disenchanted public that this consensus strategy has a decent chance of success.