When is a timetable, not a timetable?

When it's called a "blueprint." Big doings afoot in the back rooms of the White House. They're not calling it "cut and run" but it does sound suspiciously like every proposal for a timed withdrawal made by Democrats and other anti-occupation critics.

Details of the blueprint, which is to be presented to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki before the end of the year and would be carried out over the next year and beyond, are still being devised. But the officials said that for the first time Iraq was likely to be asked to agree to a schedule of specific milestones, like disarming sectarian militias, and to a broad set of other political, economic and military benchmarks intended to stabilize the country.

But remember, it's not a timetable. Timetables are for appeasers, not deciders.