Remember those all important benchmarks, the ones the Democrats said were the real issue when the “surge” was effective in reducing the violence in Iraq? You know, the real issue after we thought the prior real issue was being resolved? We haven’t heard much about them lately. Abe Greenwald at Pajamas Media has the scoop:

[In 2007,] Congress’s Iraq “benchmarks” were all the rage among Democrats. Every argument against a continued U.S. presence in Iraq was constructed around the Maliki administration’s apparent inability to meet the political and security-based milestones as outlined by America’s Democratic-majority Congress.

Then something happened. The gains of the troop surge allowed the Iraqi government and citizenry to implement the security measures and legislative acts called for by the U.S. The benchmark line of argument quietly died. Here, then, is the brief life and glorious death of the great benchmark trope.

H/T Betsy’s Page via the good Sister Toldjah.

Both the original article and the take of Betsy’s Page and Sister Toldjah’s blog are worthwhile reading. I’ll add just another little tidbit:

That’s right folks, from the not too distant past, Rep. Jim Clyburn stating that good news from Iraq is bad for the Democrats. That’s why it will be the economy they focus on from now on.

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