On Hardball last night, Matthews brought up a few points about Bush, his gang and the Iraq war while Isikoff made an important observation.

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Chris Matthews: Well, I don't want to be too critical or cynical, but does the war look any different when you are wearing your L.L.Bean costumes? I just saw them dressed up there for the affair, but these are the same faces that took us into this war, got us stuck in all the unpredicable events such as this insurgency, the whole problem we've faced over there for three or four years now. We're facing enormous numbers of casualties compared to what they predicted, which was *none*. And all this going on -- the world hating us. And the same crowd that took us in is now meeting to do what? Are they talking about reducing the number of troops or what?

Chris Matthews: What makes you think we can win? I mean, win by the President's standards which is to create a stable country that's not going to be trouble for Israel, for us, or for anybody else.

Sen. Kit Bond: Well, I had the opportunity to talk to the experts when I was in Iraq in January, and in Afghanistan, and they said it was very iffy about a year ago.

Michael Isikoff: The other thing that just struck me in your interview with Sen. Bond is, he said, I believe he said, that a year ago when he was there he was being told it was very *iffy* -- the situation in Iraq as to whether the United States could prevail. Well, if they were telling him that a year ago, or if *they* were saying that a year ago, they sure weren't sharing that with the public. That's the kind of thing that does raise questions about what we hear now, because if we now here that, well, if a year ago our top military people thought that the situation was so dire that it was iffy if we could prevail what does that say about how much we can rely on what they are saying publicly now since they certainly weren't sharing what they were privately thinking then.

(h/t Lynne)