I've been pouring over General Clark's TPMCafe blogging, trying to get a grip on it all, and I still have some questions.

Clearly General Clark is opposed to timelines. But, why, with as vague as Senator Feingold's proposal is, can't Russ and Wes be "on the same side"? This may be more of a nagging question for Senator Feingold, I know. Why is a time deadline important for him? Isn't he just concerned with not being stuck there indefinitely? Why can't we have some other kind of benchmark? Wouldn't that be more logical than a fixed date? If we look at General Clark's plan and pick pieces out of it and say, "If we try but can't accomplish this piece, then we leave." If we put some teeth into this, would Feingold (and now Boxer who seems to have signed on with him) be willing to phrase it this way instead?

That brings me to my second question. General Clark says in several places that we haven't run out of time yet, but the clock is ticking. Is he 100% sure we haven't run out of time yet? And since the clock is ticking, how will we know when we've run out of time? What signs will we be looking for? When, given that this administration probably isn't going to change anything, will it be time to just start calling for the troops to come home? And, although I know the General said that he couldn't put a timeline to when the clock would expire, is there any way to guess how that ticking clock might compare to Senator Feingold's Dec 2006 suggested target date?

Finally, General Clark's plan calls for several things to come together. What if they don't? How will we know that it's time to quit trying? For example, General Clark suggests that the President use his "bully pulpit" to call for 10,000 Arabian Americans to drop what they're doing and help us out. Does a President with a 40% approval rating actually have a bully pulpit? Has the President already missed his opportunity to make this happen? If he were to start down this path, what signs along the way would we use to gauge whether we were succeeding or not? At what point, if any, might we have to admit that we'd failed and just withdrawal?