The Republican talking point this evening in reaction to the speech is that if Obama is really, truly, unconditionally committed (no fingers crossed behind his back) to the Afghanistan effort, he wouldn’t set an “artificial” deadline for withdrawing troops.

This was, of course, a Republican mantra throughout Bush’s second term in resisting Democratic efforts to end the Iraq War. But what they don’t seem to remember is that even Bush himself came around by mid-2008 to setting a timeline for withdrawal.

David Kurtz

David Kurtz is Managing Editor and Washington Bureau Chief of Talking Points Memo where he oversees the news operations of TPM and its sister sites.