Instapundit's about to have a change of heart.

By Blue Texan

By Blue Texan - CNN, today: (Updated below) (Updated again)

Senior White House officials said Wednesday that Bush wants to send 21,000 to 24,000 additional U.S. troops to Baghdad and Anbar province over the next few months, and the first of five U.S. Army brigades could leave within weeks.

Instapundit, aka "Mobius Dick", 4/26/03:

Could we have beaten the Iraqi military with fewer troops? Yes. Would it have been nice to have more troops for occupation/pacification? Yes. Does that mean our force levels were right? ... Who knows? Somebody had to make an informed guess, and so far the results make the guess look pretty good.

9/7/2003

MAX BOOT REPORTS FROM IRAQ: Every U.S. officer I talked to said that the 150,000 soldiers we have in Iraq now are sufficient. What's required is not more troops, they said, but better policing methods.

12/17/2003

MORE TROOPS? Jim Dunnigan says it's an election-year gesture that will probably hurt actual readiness.

12/16/2004

My suggestion to McCain and Hagel: If you think we need more troops, then pass some legislation increasing the size of the Army. That's your job, right?

12/19/2004

I remain unconvinced that we need more troops in Iraq...Just as one seldom wins a war by slapping armor on everything (and no army in history has armored all its soldiers and transport vehicles), one seldom wins a war by dispersing forces to lots of locations in a "prevent" defense. That seems to be what the "more troops" crowd has in mind, but it strikes me as a poor idea.

1/11/2005

I think that calling for "more troops" is a way to criticize while not sounding weak, and that it thus has an appeal that overcomes its uncertain factual foundation...the real question is whether we have enough troops to do what we're going to do next. I think the answer to that is yes...

1/29/2005

CALLING FOR CONSTRUCTIVE ACTION, instead of just complaining about "not enough troops," a "bipartisan group" of hawks is calling for an increase in the size of the military...I'm in favor of this, too, I think. I'm not at all persuaded that we need more troops in Iraq, but I think that the argument for more troops on a global basis is pretty strong.

I can hardly wait for President Bush's speech tonight, after which Mobius Dick will most certainly take him to task for this cheap political stunt of calling for more troops, which is just an exceedingly poor idea that has no factual foundation and that will ultimately hurt readiness anyway.

I mean, there's nothing worse than a complainer.

UPDATE:

As I predicted, Mobius Dick is completely uncritical of the President's speech and wonders only, "But why did he wait so long to do these things that lots of people -- bloggers, too -- have been calling for for years?" As if that weren't gag-inducing enough, he's also posted a link criticizing Democrats for shifting positions on troop increases.

No surprises.

In other news, via Sullivan, unserious liberal Sam Brownback comes out against the surge.

The GOP meltdown is nearly complete.

UPDATE II:

Mobius Dick is now outrageously claiming that he's been "agnostic" about troop increases all along. See my response here.