INVENTING O'HANLON.

Kevin writes, "As near as I can tell, the American public is still roughly in the same place it's been since at least 2005: in favor of withdrawal within a year or two, but when that year or two is up, still in favor of withdrawal within a year or two. On that score, O'Hanlon is just the echo of a deeply conflicted public that doesn't have the backbone to make hard decisions. If he didn't exist, we'd have to invent him."

We -- and by we, I mean op-ed page editors, television bookers, and politicians who want to stay in Iraq until the Rapture -- did invent him. In May of 2004, Michael O'Hanlon, along with his colleague James Steinberg, wrote an op-ed titled "Set a Date to Pull Out."

Some will see this as cut-and-run. It is not. Unlike the case with most previous stabilization missions, our own enduring commitment to success in Iraq is beginning to work against us. It breeds cynicism among Iraqis that we are like the colonialists of old, planning to stay indefinitely to keep our hands on their oil and to use Iraq for our own, broader foreign policy objectives. The lesson of our history is that our best partners are those who freely choose to be. We must give the Iraqis the opportunity to seize that possibility for themselves.

Remember the shockwaves that one sent through the political establishment? Yeah, me neither. The sentiment wasn't helpful to the powerful, and so it was ignored. Now O'Hanon is saying "Democrats and other war critics should not be arguing for an unconditional and rushed departure," and he's getting a whole lot more TV bookings. I'm not suggesting his about-face is anything less than genuine. But the only reason he's gotten so much attention is because his new opinions are very convenient to the administration and Fred Hiatt. Michael O'Hanlon, in his role as an important commentator on Iraq, was invented as soon as he began expressing the sentiments these folks were looking for. Before that, he was just another military wonk,. saying the same old rational thing.