Which is sadder, Maverick McCain the "moderate" or Joe Biden the neo-dove on the Iraq War?

Is there any real sense in Joe Biden's evolution on the Iraq War other than his reading of the political winds for a possible 2008 presidential run?

Well, politics is politics, and at least he's trying to sound antiwar now: Time for An Iraq Timetable by Joseph Biden Jr. Washington Post 11/26/05.

But it looks like Joe's exit strategy is based on an unsound premise, that the US actually controls Iraq right now.  For instance:

Over the next six months, we must forge a sustainable political compromise between Iraqi factions, strengthen the Iraqi government and bolster reconstruction efforts, and accelerate the training of Iraqi forces.

It's hard to believe that Biden isn't aware of the consensus-building that took place at the recent Cairo Conference.  There already is a political compromise emerging among Shi'a, Sunnis and Kurds: they want the American troops out.  At Cairo, they even endorsed the legitimacy of resistance to foreign occupation.

But I don't think that's exactly what Joe Biden was talking about.

Yep, the times they are a-changin'.  Even Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton may decide to start grumbling about the need for a faster pullout the way things are going now.

Jane Hamsher at the FiredogLake blog is underwhelmed by Biden's (kinda-sorta) conversion (Thanks, Murtha. Joe Will Take It From Here 11/26/05):

When John Murtha went up like a trial balloon last week, Joltin' Joe Biden "wasn't there yet," 'cos God forbid someone says Joe Can't Do War. Then Jean Schmidt went over like Schiavo, Joe stuck his finger in the air and felt the wind shifting, and just in time for the Sunday morning chat shows he writes in the WaPo that he wants a timetable for withdrawal.

Pat Lang is more generous in "Time for An Iraq Timetable" Biden Sic Semper Tyrannis blog 11/26/05.  (By the way, I don't know why Lang picked a title for his blog that happens to be what John Wilkes Booth shouted to the crowd at the Ford Theater after he fatally shot Abraham Lincoln, but Lang is not some neo-Confederate; his a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst.)  He writes:

Are these obstacles and difficulties so great as to make Biden's outline "moot?"  I think not.  We are now in Iraq. We are not in some other situation which we would have preferred.  It is time for the "loyal opposition" to oppose.  Biden's plan should provide an "umbrella" of thought under which to do so.