The Part of the Iraq debate they surely want to ignore.

[Warren DeMontague]

Reputable (whatever that means) commentators on the right have repeated ad nauseum the saw that "Kerry didn't offer a plan on Iraq" or, specifically, Dubya's line that "Kerry's plan just involves a summit-- no summit ever brought a dictator down"... Well, the dictator is down already- the question is, how do we deal with Iraq now that we're there- and obviously convincing the population that we genuinely have their interests at heart is going to be a major part of stabilizing the situation so we can all go home; and that's what we want, right? A free Iraq with self-determination? We don't have designs on the oil or long-term plans to stay there... right?

Kerry nailed this and Bush didn't have a response- no one seems to want to talk about it, but he's got the Iraq question wrapped up, right here:

KERRY: Secretary of State Colin Powell told this president the Pottery Barn rule: If you break it, you fix it.

Now, if you break it, you made a mistake. It's the wrong thing to do. But you own it. And then you've got to fix it and do something with it.

Now that's what we have to do. There's no inconsistency. Soldiers know over there that this isn't being done right yet. I'm going to get it right for those soldiers, because it's important to Israel, it's important to America, it's important to the world, it's important to the fight on terror.

But I have a plan to do it. He doesn't.

LEHRER: Speaking of your plan, new question, Senator Kerry. Two minutes.

Can you give us specifics, in terms of a scenario, time lines, et cetera, for ending major U.S. military involvement in Iraq?

KERRY: The time line that I've set out -- and again, I want to correct the president, because he's misled again this evening on what I've said. I didn't say I would bring troops out in six months. I said, if we do the things that I've set out and we are successful, we could begin to draw the troops down in six months. And I think a critical component of success in Iraq is being able to convince the Iraqis and the Arab world that the United States doesn't have long-term designs on it.

As I understand it, we're building some 14 military bases there now, and some people say they've got a rather permanent concept to them.

When you guard the oil ministry, but you don't guard the nuclear facilities, the message to a lot of people is maybe, Wow, maybe they're interested in our oil.

Now, the problem is that they didn't think these things through properly. And these are the things you have to think through.

What I want to do is change the dynamics on the ground. And you have to do that by beginning to not back off of the Fallujahs and other places, and send the wrong message to the terrorists. You have to close the borders.

You've got to show you're serious in that regard. But you've also got to show that you are prepared to bring the rest of the world in and share the stakes.

I will make a flat statement: The United States of America has no long-term designs on staying in Iraq.

And our goal in my administration would be to get all of the troops out of there with a minimal amount you need for training and logistics as we do in some other countries in the world after a war to be able to sustain the peace.

But that's how we're going to win the peace, by rapidly training the Iraqis themselves.

Even the administration has admitted they haven't done the training, because they came back to Congress a few weeks ago and asked for a complete reprogramming of the money.

Now what greater admission is there, 16 months afterwards. Oops, we haven't done the job. We have to start to spend the money now. Will you guys give us permission to shift it over into training?

[CarolynEC]

1. What, uzzactly, is Bush's plan?

Has anyone ever even posed this question to him?

[Nobody]

2. Bush's Plan? More of the same

Bush is an idiot who thinks it's flip flopping to pull your arm out of the lawn mower before you've unclogged it, even though you haven't touched the clog and have three fingers laying on the grass and your entire hand is next to go.

Bush would push his arm in further, just to be consistent.

John Kerry knows when it's time to quit doing Plan A and start working on Plan B.

Intelligent people have contingency plans.

[Cocoa]

3. the bases issue is being deliberately ignored

the Kerry campaign is raising the issue, but the media is not interested.

[Warren DeMontague]

4. Time to raise the profile, I think-- particularly in light of the fact

that the media keeps saying "Kerry doesn't have any concrete ideas or plans for Iraq"

How about convincing the Iraqi people we aren't there to use their country as a staging are for more wars? Isn't that "concrete"?