GnostiNews DoubleTap - The HOPE Edition

Yeah, it's good to be alive today. Hope your day is going well, also. *** FINALLY: The bipartisan Iraq Study Group reached a consensus on Wednesday on a final report that will call for a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq but stop short of setting a firm timetable for their withdrawal, according to people familiar with the panel’s deliberations. The report, unanimously approved by the 10-member panel, led by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, is to be delivered to President Bush next week. It is a compromise between distinct paths that the group has debated since March, avoiding a specific timetable, which has been opposed by Mr. Bush, but making it clear that the American troop commitment should not be open-ended. The recommendations of the group, formed at the request of members of Congress, are nonbinding. Yes, it's simply a ray of hope through the bloodshed and chaos we call Iraq, but that's important to me. Yes, there is no "specific timetable" because Baker had to appear to give W something in order to make it look like he was in charge. Yes, it's all a smokescreen prior to occupying our permanent megabases in Iraq. Yes, it's not going to happen immediately. But It Is Movement. It Is Changing The Course. And that should be no problem because W was never a "stay the course" type of guy in the first place, right? *** Of course, BuzzFlash (BUY something!) has their own way of pointing to the story: Report: Poppy Bush's "Iraq Study Group" (Uh, We've Had Several Years to Study Iraq -- We Didn't Need Another "Group") Will Call for Troop Draw Down. Probably, Also Known as the "Retreat from Baghdad and Circle the Oil Fields" Option. Of course it is. There's money to be made. *** It's a good day again, folks. Hope for the future is a powerful fuel and we've been blessed with another dose of it today. Enjoy it for a little while. Earl