estimates rather than low balling weapon systems and then having huge over runs - which are by definition never in the budget but still paid for. I am only guessing but it is based on the fact that Obama and Gates appear more financially prudent and intellectually honest than their predecessors.
Today we have a large army in Iraq. We have to budget for it. When that army is no longer in Iraq then they will no longer be in the budget. He has announced that he is intent on removing the combat troops from Iraq and once gone they will no longer be in the budget.
The budget currently, therefore, largely reflects the actual cost of implementing Bush's policies that are now being undone. You have to change the policy first and then the budget.
President Obama is clearly laying the foundation, for example, of ending the missle shield in the Czech Republic and Poland. Until his strategy is worked out then it will still be there on paper.
There is no "leap of faith". Obama has outlined that he not only intends to end the Iraq War, but, as he frequently repeated, he wants to end the 'assumptions and thinking that led us to war".
What is the evidence of this?
He repeatedly announced during the campaign, at considerable political cost, that he is willing to speak to our enemies without preconditions. He has sent a message to the people of Iran, he has announced that he is going to start working on nuclear disarmament.
It doesn't take a "leap of faith" to see Obama's recipe. Engage our enemies diplomatically, reduce the level of tension and initiate the policy changes at the time when they will gain the most political acceptance through the entire country.
Your recipe is to make all of the changes now and antagonize everyone who disagrees with us rather than winning them over. It plays well on the internet, it raises your profile amongst the true believers, but it will not build the legislative numbers needed to actually get the policy in place.
I think that there is an interesting historic parrallel with Lincoln and the abolitionists who rallied against Lincoln at every turn for his slow pace. At every point they expressed their disappointment at his moderation. Fredric Douglas was the most articulate of these. Over time he continued to rail against Lincoln's slow pace even as he became more and more affection of Lincoln personally.
In the end, however, Douglas came to the conclusion that Lincoln was not slow or a moderate. He concluded that Lincoln in fact achieved the maximum degree of change by timing his moves according to the political play at the time. By doing so he may have not appeared as radical as others but what he achieved was more radical than what their "everything now" approach would have.
I commend Douglas' words to you;
. . . he could do nothing without the support of Congress . . I am satisfied now that he is doing all that circumstances will permit him to do.
And so it is with Obama. Even though we are in the middle of the worst economic meltdown in 70 years Obama continues to take time to lay down the ground work that is necessary to reshape the current conflicts that make significant military reduction more difficult. He has already gone beyond his campaign position by dramatically elevating nuclear disarmament and control of nuclear weapons in his Prague speech.
It hasn't even been 100 days and you seem to want to rush to the head of the herd of the progressives who are determined to establish that they were there first in finding the President not progressive and a sell out.
Did you really think he was going to change everything in 100 days?
I find this particularly ironic in that you were such an eloquent advocate of Senator Clinton's Presidential campaign and yet her campaign was much more militaristic in tone and took every effort to bash Senator Obama's stated intent to achieve aggressive negotiation in face to face talks without preconditions.