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You don't think elections have consequences? Check this out....

Republican Senator Gordon Smith, who will be up for reelection in his home state of Oregon in 2008, has done a serious about face on the war on Iraq. Via Crooks and Liars, here's an excerpt of the transcript of his appearance with George Stephanopoulos:

STEPHANOPOULOS: You said in that speech the current policy may be criminal.

SMITH: I said it — you can use any adjective you want, George,
but I have long believed, in a military context, when you do the same
thing over and over again without a clear strategy for victory at the
expense of your young people in arms, that is dereliction, that is
deeply immoral.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yet, you also say the Baker commission report is
a recipe for retreat. So what are you for?

SMITH: I am for fighting the war on terror against jihadists.
When you get to being policeman in a sectarian civil war, that is not
what the American people enlisted for. That's not what I voted for.

I voted for toppling a chief terrorist and tyrant, ridding him of
weapons of mass destruction but not for being target practice in the
middle of a sectarian strife that we see, where hundreds of bodies a
day are pulled out of the Tigris River, Sunnis and Shias who are
butchering each other, really, over the question of who has the
rightful successor to Mohammed.

It's nice to see Sen. Smith begin to come to his senses, but.... I'm not really sure what that last section is supposed to mean. He believes that the Baker commission report is a "recipe for retreat," but he also thinks our current policy is "deeply immoral" and that we have no business involving ourselves in a civil war. So what precisely does he think we should do? Unfortunately I missed the live broadcast of the show, so I haven't seen anything beyond this excerpt. Anyone out there know?