Let's leave the GWB/GOP Medicare disaster out of this.
and MacNamara" where they had all kinds of measures for success
Yes. I believe there should be objective measures that ordinary Americans can look at to measure progress towards our objectives. While we can't know how long it will take, we can certainly get a specific idea of what needs to be done, what remains to be done, and roughly how long we think it will take.
--such as body counts,
I don't care what the measures are, so long as they accurately reflect progress towards a goal. For example, trained Iraqi forces. How many have we trained? How many left to go? When 50 get blown up, does that lower our total count by 50, requiring that we train 50 replacements? About how many must we train before they take over? What pace are we training them at? Provide an approximate date when we think we can have the whole number trained. etc. It's called accountability. along with the use of "limited force" which ties the hands of our valiant men in the combat zone?
Sorry, this line ("along with the use of "limited force" which ties the hands of our valiant men in the combat zone?") was accidentally left on the end of my post.