Second Best Blogger

Ben's dad here. While he's herding twelve year-olds, Ben has given me permission to make an occasional guest appearance on Le Penseur. I'll post a thought here and a link there when I can.

Today's New York Times contains the following candidate for the Bush flip-flop files:

Some American officers expressed frustration at the start-stop nature of the military campaign last April. First came the decision to attack Falluja after a relatively small group of men had mutilated the four American contractors. Then, with the marines prevailing militarily but still not in control of the city, they were told to halt.

"We didn't ask to go into the city, and we didn't ask to stop offensive operations," said a senior American officer involved in the campaign. "If we had not been told to stop, in three to five days we would have owned the city."

Both decisions were made by the political leadership in the United States, he said, but "you tell your force to do one thing, and then another - it has a cost."

Hope the Kerry-Edwards campaign picks up on that one. It would also be worth adding to the excellent page documenting Bush-Cheney flip-floppery provided by the folks at the Center for American Progress.