Republican hypocrisy continues

Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner now believes that the President will begin to lose Republican support for his troop surge unless progress is made. However, he continues to not want to set benchmarks for success. My question is why. Why does Boehner want to give Bush a blank check to do as he pleases, when he believes we need to change course if the surge doesn't show results in the next few months? Wouldn't it make more sense to retain the power to revoke funding instead of abdicating all authority on the matter for the next year?

This is another example of the Republicans trying to play both sides. Some might ask why I would criticize Boehner for backing down from a hardline stance. The trick is that he isn't backing down, he only wants people to think he is willing to compromise. If he were truly interested in forcing Bush to show progress he would want benchmarks. He would want the ability to hold Bush accountable for continuing failures in Iraq. Instead, he wants to write Bush a blank check, while claiming that he wants to know "whats plan B." Does anyone really doubt that in 3 - 4 months Boehner will be claiming that the requisite progress has been made? He will conveniently retain the ability to make such an assertion without any actual objective benchmarks to measure the alleged progress against. Republicans don't oppose benchmarks becaues they represent micromanagement of the war. They oppose them because it would give the American people an objective line upon which to measure our progress against. Further, they would bear the stamp of Congressional approval, making it fairly difficult to argue the appropriate amount of progress is being made if the benchmarks aren't being met. Nice try Mr. Boehner, but I'm certainly not buying it, and I doubt that the American people will either.

Madison (yes its Madison, my computer had auto-saved Jefferson's login)