As for the cherry picking of the bill, I'm sure you didn't want me to post the whole bill:D
Did you find something else in the bill anywhere that negated that section of the bill?

Of course the entire bill wasn't designed just to start the withdrawal. Bills in the US are never about one thing. They start out that way sometimes and then practically every person who gets their hands on it has to add something to it in the hopes that their little part of the bill will become law even if those voting on it never bothered to read it all. There is nothing vague in the section of the bill that I quoted. It is very specific and would have been binding upon the President and the Secretary of Defense if it had been signed into law.

As you said, that matters not except in our mini-debate about what the Democrats wanted to do or not do.

What matters is that, no matter who gets elected, they're going to inherit a hell of mess.

Thanks for the link to McCain's site, too. While all his points may not be totally defensible (and how could they be, after all, we are talking about election time rhetoric which is rampant on both sides of the issues), there are quite a few sentiments there that are hard to disagree with.