Mixed Messages on Exit Strategy

Worth Clicking: Blasts from the past wound Romney

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December 06, 2009

Mixed Messages on Exit Strategy

The White House is having a very hard time staying on message about the exit strategy from Afghanistan.

Robert Gibbs (12/2/09): "The policy is -- let me be clear, let me be clear, because the President was clear -- our forces, in July of 2011, will transition out of Afghanistan. Again, understand what he said: This is a conditions-based drawdown."

Later that day, Chip Reid reported: "After the briefing, Gibbs went to the president for clarification. Gibbs then called me to his office to relate what the president said. The president told him it IS locked in - there is no flexibility. Troops WILL start coming home in July 2011. Period. It's etched in stone. Gibbs said he even had the chisel."

But then this morning...

Hillary Clinton on Meet the Press (12/6/09): "We're not talking about an exit strategy or a drop dead deadline. What we're talking about is an assessment that in January 2011, we can begin a transition. A transition to hand off -- responsibility to the Afghan forces."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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December 06, 2009