And before we get too upset about this, remember: The people spoke, and Donald Rumsfeld is now out of a job.

My personal feeling is “However we got there, we’re there now. By invading, we’ve taken on an obligation to the people of Iraq to not flush them down the drain.” I’m not convinced that pulling out would hose them in the long term, but it sure would in the short term. I would support a pull-out if it was accompanied by a plan – almost any plan! – to stabilize the region in the long-term.

The first goal should be to stop the bleeding. It serves no one to keep pissing away American troops on an ill-defined mission they can’t achieve. Pull the troops back into areas they can defend, even if that means turning Baghdad into a secure military base and giving up on most of Iraq. Sectarian violence will rise, but American troop losses will drop along with political presssure on finding a solution right now.

Second, decide what your goal is and get an over-engineered estimate of time/money/troops it will take to achieve. Do the same for Afghanistan. When we inevitably realize we can win or the other without a massive military buildup and debt spiral, decide which is more important (Afghanistan) and react accordingly.

Finally, as far as hearings and subpoenas go, I doubt we’ll see much of that. Frankly, I’m not as interested in assigning blame to Halliburton or the neocons as I am in seeing the Democrats set out an actual agenda and try to acheive it. If, two years from now, the only thing the Democrats end up doing is blaming Republicans and stopping a few of the more egregious Bush proposals, they’ll lose their Congressional majority and be in an even deeper hole than they were in 2002.

The American people didn’t vote for change, they voted for progress. The Democrats managed not to screw up the election too badly. Now they have to show they can actually govern.