Republicans are against "cutting and running", unless it is their idea.

Democrats who have called for U.S. troops to start coming home from Iraq said a proposed withdrawal plan reportedly put forward by the top American general there shows their criticism has been on the mark.

President Bush's Republican allies in Congress in recent weeks have criticized Democratic proposals for getting out of Iraq, accusing the opposition party of laying plans to "cut and run" from the war.

"Here we have a situation where Democrats, 80 percent of us, voted to say we ought to start reducing our troop presence there -- and again, we got pummeled," Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, told CBS. "And now, it turns out, we're in synch with General Casey."

Military sources told CNN Thursday that Casey was considering pulling 6,000 to 10,000 troops out of Iraq as part of a reduction, but neither the general nor Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would confirm that at a news conference the same day.

So if the Democrats want to start bringing the troops home that is called a "cut and run" approach, but when the Republicans do it then it is just a "troop reduction"?

So my question is what changed from Thursday to now? Did the situation on the ground suddenly improve dramatically? Anybody see anything like that on the news? No?

Well I am just stumped! What could be the reasoning for the military to start reducing the number of soldiers? It could not be politically motivated could it?

No shit Sherlock! And let me tell you this, since it is political you can expect the number of soldiers to go back up as soon as the election is over. And one has to wonder what will happen with the soldiers who are still stationed over there while our elections over here are happening. If we think the insurgents will scale back until after the fall elections, then our leaders are even dumber then any of us have dared to think.

This clumsy political maneuvering is an embarrassment to us all. I certaily hope that by now even the slowest among the American people are finally starting to pick up on the pattern.