Notable quotable

This from Sidney Blumenthal, writing in the Guardian for May 13:

William Odom, a retired general and former member of the National Security Council who is now at the Hudson Institute, a conservative thinktank, reflects a wide swath of opinion in the upper ranks of the military. "It was never in our interest to go into Iraq," he told me. It is a "diversion" from the war on terrorism; the rationale for the Iraq war (finding WMD) is "phoney"; the US army is overstretched and being driven "into the ground"; and the prospect of building a democracy is "zero". In Iraqi politics, he says, "legitimacy is going to be tied to expelling us. Wisdom in military affairs dictates withdrawal in this situation. We can't afford to fail, that's mindless. The issue is how we stop failing more. I am arguing a strategic decision."

There is the well-known story of how Lyndon Johnson's advisors were dejected when Walter Cronkite came out against the war in Vietnam. "If we've lost Walter," the thinking went, "we've lost middle America."

What does it say about Bush when he's lost the support of people at the Hudson Institute?

Set the date and get out.