A few things

1. John Kerry needs to stop running for president. Whatever the guy does, the storyline is going to be "Kerry makes Dems look weak and indecisive." So really, I'm glad he wants to help, but it's not doing anyone any good for him to be fronting some of these proposals.
2. Why is the NYT so obsessed with the politics of the situation? Shouldn't there be a serious national discussion on how we resolve the mess we've made in Iraq? Something that goes beyond "stay the course" or "cut and run?" I've got to confess, I have no idea what the best course of action is - does our moral responsibility to help fix what we fucked up in the first place override the very real possibility that our military's presence in Iraq is itself a destabilizing factor? That sounds to me like a more important discussion than "John Kerry smells like cat farts."
3. Who referenced in that article wasn't running for president?