The Speech

Lots of build-up and yet precious little new. He did talk about how fabulously Iraqi forces are doing. And he did talk about how as the Iraqi army theoretically improves the U.S. will "increasingly move out of Iraqi cities, reduce the number of bases from which we operate, and conduct fewer patrols and convoys."

Here's what I'm curious about: What explains the discrepancy between the expectations for the speech and the speech itself? Was it just a case of media-types and others overreading the tea-leaves? Was it a case of a tone-deaf White House , again, not realizing how stale its rhetoric sounds?  I'm flummoxed.