The Baby Blue Cherub has the link:
In a speech he's about to give shortly at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Ohio, Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, will for the first time talk about a specific date for when he envisions direct American military involvement to be over in Iraq.
It's January, 2013. By then, he says, American combat involvement will be over and most U.S. troops back home.
source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/...
That great tearing sound is McCain trying to rip off the scab (which covers his whole body) of the Bush Administration. It's now abundantly clear that linkage to Bush is political suicide, and just like McCain has done throughout the election he will now flip-flop, or pander, or whatever they're calling it these days. Note the date -- it would take four years of his presumptive presidency to withdraw troops.
What will McCain do, then, about the whole history of quotes to the contrary? How is he planning on selling this obvious flip-flop? Here's a taste of his rhetoric:
By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced.
So he was against a withdrawal before he was for it, but he's not really for it now, see. He is speculating that this will be the situation in 2013. I suspect that if anyone tries to pin this date on him he'll slough it off. He'll say that he doesn't believe in a date, but rather this is what he "hopes to accomplish" or some other nonsense. Neat, eh? It's a rhetorical trick the Republicans have used again and again (i.e., rosy projections about how the war would be quick and painless) to make nice-sounding statements that don't really mean anything.
McCain isn't offering a hard plan for withdrawal, just some speculation about the situation after four years of his presidency. Considering that the Democrats in Congress have an actual plan, this just more of the same. He may be trying not to look like Bush, but he sure is following Bush's playbook.