mixed msg?

tho gen david petraeus favors the "surge" and most senators oppose it, they confirmed him 81-0 as commander in iraq.

on its face that sounds contradictory, so c-span began the week by asking washington journal viewers to phone in or eml their opinions on whether the senate is sending a mixed message.

it certainly looks mixed, but good strategic reasons argue in favor of dems voting as they did.

if and when a bigger force fails to stabilize iraq, they don't want bush to be able to point the finger of blame at them for not giving him the general he wanted.

he asked them to give the supposedly new strategy a chance. as jon stewart says, everybody deserves a seventh chance. but this chance hangs from a gallows, and it's all the rope mr compassion needs.

george w still appears to be acting as if he thinks he's in a comic book, but when this particular spiderman finally wakes, he'll find he's in the real world, the ink on the page is human lives, and he's become tangled in his own web.