I didn't catch Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) yesterday on "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer," but apparently he had a few words to say about the situation in Iraq. Matthew Yglesias passes on the transcript along with a little analysis.

ANOTHER FOR A TIMELINE? I didn't watch the broadcast, but reading over the transcript of Senator Ron Wyden's appearance on Late Edition yesterday, it seems that the Oregon Democrat is creeping toward timetableism:

The administration, Wolf, tries to portray this as just one of two approaches. You can either stay the course with them, or in effect cut and run.

I think there are other alternatives that ought to be pursued. For example, one that I'll be exploring in our intelligence committee is we've set deadlines for the Iraqi's on a constitution. We set deadlines with respect to elections. I think we ought to be asking about setting a deadline with respect to training their security forces. That is a prerequisite to being able to bring our troops home. I think -- I want to be constructive. I think that's the kind of issue we ought to be looking at ...

It's one thing to talk about an immediate troop withdrawal. I've said deadlines can be useful. We set them for the constitution. We set them for the elections. Why not say in an area where we don't seem to be making a lot of progress in terms of training the Iraqis for their own security, let's set a deadline there. You've got to get them trained to get to the question Russ Feingold wants to explore.

I think there are constructive alternatives in between what the administration is saying, just stay the course, continue to accept their assessment of what's going on, and in effect what they try to say is a cut and run strategy. I've suggested an alternative.

On the one hand, Wyden seems to be trying to say he holds a middle-ground position. On the other hand, his middle-ground position of setting a deadline for the training mission sounds a lot like what Russ Feingold and others of us have been saying. Obviously, Democrats are looking for some kind of political sweet spot here. Unfortunately, it's not clear that whatever middle ground Wyden's looking for is really there. It does seem to me that it makes sense politically to try and avoid the appearance of defeatism, which I take to be what he's trying to do, but on the other hand clarity has political virtues that this position seems to lack.

Very interesting.