Despite past assurances to the contrary, the Bush administration is taking Barack Obama's advice on foreign policy -- again. You know, the one about talking with those evildoers:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the United States would be prepared to reconcile with the Taliban if the Afghan government pursued talks to end the seven-year conflict in that country.

Gates made the comments to reporters Thursday while at a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Budapest, Hungary. The United States and NATO are looking for ways to reduce the rising violence in Afghanistan. [...]

Gates, referring to talks with the Taliban, said a similar rapprochement strategy worked in Iraq.

"We promoted a reconciliation that involved people we were pretty confident had been shooting at us and killing our soldiers," he said.

"At the end of the day, that's how most wars end," Gates said, referencing the Sunni Awakening Movement in Iraq.

"There has to be ultimately -- and I'll underscore ultimately -- reconciliation as part of a political outcome to this," he said.

What will the wingnuts say about this? Is Gates a traitor? Is Bush an appeaser? Is Condi Rice a stealth Islamofascist? The mind whirls with all the possible ways they might express their outrage at these un-American defeatists. What would Saint General Petraeus say?

Oh no! He's an Obama pod person too!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus said on Wednesday that negotiations with some members of the Taliban could provide a way to reduce violence in sections of Afghanistan gripped by an intensifying insurgency.

"If there are people who are willing to reconcile (with the government), then that would be a positive step in some of these areas that have actually been spiraling downward," said Petraeus, who will soon take up responsibility for U.S. operations in Afghanistan.

Johnny Mac, their lonely Reich Wing eyes turn to you. Say it ain't so. Don't let good true blue white Americans get sucked into that black muslim terrorist Obama's evil plan. What's that you say?

"I have to tell you [Obama] is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States..."

"He is a decent family man with whom I happen to have some disagreements." [...]

"...I admire Senator Obama and his accomplishments. ..."

Oh My God! There's been a disturbance in the force in a galaxy far, far away. That sound you just heard was the tiny fever swamp brains of millions of ditto heads all exploding with simultaneous brain aneurysms.

I expect the Rapture any second now. Surely a loving Lord and Savior would not allow the faithful to endure such brutal torture any longer.