Obama, Clinton, Iraq

Sam Stein notices that, in keeping with a pledge not to support any Iraq legislation that does not include a date-certain withdrawal, has not cosponsered the latest draft of the Feingold-Reid bill, which has been stripped of that provision. Hillary Clinton has.

I suppose it's possible to read this as an important symbolic difference between the two. Obama, by taking this stand, is signaling a greater commitment than HRC to an expedient withdrawal. Etcetera. But at this stage of the game, I think it makes much more practical sense for both Clinton and Obama to acknowledge that the Congress will not end the war, especially in the way Obama or Clinton would if elected, and to work to pass any war-ending bill--date certain or otherwise--so that, at the very least, the president can't keep hiding behind the procedural trickery of the Senate.