Aw, c'mon Ambassador.

"I have known Hillary Clinton for a decade. She is the one candidate who, in my judgment, understands the need to get Americans out of harm's way and to move this (mess in Iraq) to a political process."

There are a lot of reasons that Joe Wilson might endorse Hillary Clinton. They're friends, and that might be reason enough all by itself. She's certainly the quintessential "inside the Beltway" candidate in the Democratic top tier, and Joe Wilson is, as John Nichols says "very much a man of Washington."

The quotation above, though, sounds like the kind of thing the Clinton consultants would find the most helpful for the Senator. On the surface, it's a ringing endorsement from someone with indisputable anti-Iraq war cred, exactly the kind of thing you want to put out to a conference call of a select crew of liberal bloggers. On reflection, though, it just doesn't hold up.

Which Democratic candidate of whatever consequence doesn't understand "the need to get Americans out of harm's way and to move this (mess in Iraq) to a political process." ? Which candidate has been slower to adopt that stance than Clinton? Joe Lieberman isn't running, after all, and he's not a Democrat anymore anyway.

"I like her, and she's as likely as anyone to end the war" would have been enough, and would have sounded a bit more authentic.

In fact, it's time to take the war off the table as a consideration for the Democratic nomination. The new Democratic President, whoever he or she may ultimately be, will end the war.

While we're at it, let's scrap electability as a criterion for the nomination, too. The only candidates in the field whose electability might raise questions are Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, and neither will be our nominee. Any of the rest can beat any of the Republican contenders. "Can" doesn't mean "will," of course, and some would be better than others (one would be best of all), but among Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Obama and Richardson, none are unelectable.

There are other issues in play - a return to Constitutional governance, defense of our civil liberties and restoring the American middle class - and on those issues there are clear differences. Those differences should be the frame of the debate going forward.