Gates praises Democrats

Is it me or has Gates become something of a contrarian in the White House? He strays off the Bush-Cheney talking points today and suggests that Democrats are helping resolve the impasse in Iraq.

Toward that end, Gates said demands in the U.S. Congress for a timeline to withdraw American troops from Iraq are constructive because they exert pressure on Iraq's leaders to forge compromises.

"The debate in Congress . . . has been helpful in demonstrating to the Iraqis that American patience is limited," Gates told Pentagon reporters traveling with him in Jordan. "The strong feelings expressed in the Congress about the timetable probably has had a positive impact . . . in terms of communicating to the Iraqis that this is not an open-ended commitment."

I seem to recall Gates contradicting the official White House lies line more than once lately.

Meanwhile,Greg Sargent does some dataming in the latest WaPo poll and notices a growing trend. Americans aren't buying the propaganda like they used to. Some 57% believe we can win the war on terror without the US winning the war in Iraq.

That's up ten points in four months and despite the aggressive White House campaign attempting to sell the opposite view. Even more importantly, some of our press are getting on board the reality express and actually reporting that the Democrats are apparently benefiting in the public mind from taking a hard stance on this issue, rather than parroting the conventional wisdom that they're shooting themselves in the foot by not kowtowing to Bush and Cheney.

Now that's what I call a real sign of progress.

Michael van der Galien has more thoughts on Gates.

Update: Cernig is on this story and has much more. It appears this disconnect between the White House and Gates could be potentially more explosive than I initially thought.