Informed Speculation

…and by the way, please make it go away before I have to lead:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton called today for President Bush to “extricate our country” from Iraq by the time he leaves office in 2009, and she also said she knew enough about “evil and bad men” to protect the country from its enemies.

After fairly gentle questioning from Iowa Democrats on Saturday, the first of a two-day visit to the state with the first-in-the-nation caucuses, Mrs. Clinton was hit with more challenging inquiries about Iraq, health care and wartime leadership during a town hall-style meeting here in eastern Iowa.

One person in the audience pressed Mrs. Clinton on her vote authorizing military action in Iraq in 2002, saying she allowed “the president to go to war,” and asked for specific steps she would take to end the war. She replied by selectively quoting from her speech in 2002 about her vote, saying it was not cast “for pre-emptive war,” but rather as leverage for the president to work diplomatic channels. (She did not mention that she also said at the time that she cast her vote “with conviction.)

Mrs. Clinton also took issue with President Bush’s recent statements that he did not expect to have the troops out of Iraq by the time he leaves office.

“I think it’s the height of irresponsibility and I really resent it — this was his decision to go to war, he went with an ill-conceived plan, an incompetently executed strategy, and we should expect him to extricate our country from this before he leaves office,” the senator said this morning.

Pathetic…I’m rapidly losing whatever good will I had built up towards Hilary.  We won’t pull out of Iraq before 2009, and we shouldn’t…this is a long-term commitment, and Hillary is showing that she’s not up to the task…