Is President Bush now an unserious, mouth-breather?

President Bush has officially raised the white flag of surrender.

WaPost:

"In the past, Democrats and other critics of the war who talked about benchmarks and timetables were labeled as 'defeatists, ' 'Defeat- o-crats,' or people who wanted to 'cut and run.'

"So why shouldn't the American people conclude that this is nothing from you other than semantic, rhetorical games and all politics two weeks before an election?"

Bush replied by distinguishing between mutually agreed-upon benchmarks and a fixed timetable for withdrawal.

But Bush has previously opposed even benchmarks. And when asked how he planned to measure success toward the benchmarks -- and what he would do if the benchmarks weren't met -- Bush ducked the question.

Benchmarks. Gee, that's swell, George. But it seems to me that there were a few other guys who have proposed "benchmarks" before. I think their names are Murtha, Kerry and Biden.

Kerry said the Bush administration needs to outline a clear plan about what benchmarks must be reached in order to bring the troops home. (11/9/05)

...

MR. RUSSERT: But you expect by November there’ll be significant troop withdrawals?

REP. MURTHA: I expect them to announce significant withdrawals. And I think—I, I say there’ll be withdrawals. But there’ll be—for instance, you’ll see in the spring they’ll start to announce withdrawal and you will see what they call benchmarks, what everybody else calls a timetable. But I tell you, we have to convince the Iraqis—we have to say to the Iraqis, “This is your war, this is no longer our war. This—you’ve got an elected government, this is up to you now to settle this thing.” And then we’ve got to say, say to them, “You start to work this out yourself. We’re going to, we’re going to redeploy our troops as quickly as possible.” (3/19/06)

....

"Specifically," Biden said, "the administration should develop with Congress clear benchmarks or goals in key areas: security, governance and politics, reconstruction and burden-sharing. We in Congress should aggressively assert our oversight responsibility by insisting that the administration report on progress toward those goals every month in public testimony." (7/23/05)

When will Putz call Bush an unserious mouth-breather?