Kathryn, as I remember the debate from last year (and, unfortunately, the year before that), the key word in the argument was about a “timetable” for withdrawal from Iraq. And the position of the White House was, timetables were bad. There was a related argument about “benchmarks” of progress, some now abandoned, that the Iraqis would have to meet before…before, well, something happened. The position of the White House was that benchmarks were good. “The idea is to develop with the Iraqi government a series of benchmarks – oil, federalism, constitutional reform, there’s like 20 different things – and have that developed in a way that they’re comfortable with and we’re comfortable with,” George W. Bush said when he met with a group of conservative journalists at the White House on October 25, 2006. At the time, I don’t remember thinking that benchmarks and timetables were the same thing, although – even though the president wouldn’t say it – there was the implication that missed benchmarks could lead to a timetable of withdrawal.

I was talking over the McCain-Romney flap with a Romney aide last night, and while he hit back hard at McCain – “This is a stunningly false statement about the governor’s positions, and I believe that John McCain knows that this is wrong, that it is a false statement” – he also seemed to take care to avoid using the word “timetable,” which Romney had used in the ABC interview So in defending Romney, he said that, back in April, Romney “was making a parallel argument to what the president was making – that we have to have benchmarks and milestones.” Well, the White House and its defenders were indeed talking favorably about benchmarks. But the timetable was a stickier thing.