THE CLINTON-OBAMA WHITE FLAG

    Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, both hurtling ever-leftward, covered themselves with the Move-On.org crowd this week by voting against the Iraq war-funding bill because it no longer imposed deadlines for withdrawing U.S. forces.

    This despite the fact that both maintain they "support our troops" - and, until recently, had rejected the idea of cutting off funding.

    And the fact that last year both voted against setting any timetable for troop withdrawals.

    In other words, when it comes to deadlines and funding cutoffs, both senators were against it before they were for it.

    Though when it comes to the war itself, Hillary was for it before she was against it.

    Sen. Clinton seems to take her cues from whatever public-opinion polls are saying at any given moment - particularly those that have her falling behind in Iowa.

    As Sen. John McCain rightly noted, what Obama and Clinton did is "adopt the policy of surrender" and "the equivalent of waving a white flag to al Qaeda."

    The two Democrats each hope to become the nation's commander-in-chief come January 2009. How would they presume to fight a war, if necessary, with Congress setting artificial deadlines that bear no relation to the actual situation onthe ground?

    Let's hope they - and we - never have to find out.