60% of americans think the afghan war was a bad idea or mistake, which is the highest level ever, so the american public is certainly losing patience and it s costing billions to do this, and taxpayers certainly have a reason to think they have to have a return on their investment. if there isn t real progress by the summer, i think a lot of people, including myself, will say, well, a vanityian effort was made, but this didn t work out. right now it s an open question. peter, thank you. so what does this mean for u.s. troops in afghanistan? let s make it really personal here. let s bring in pentagon correspondent barbara starr. the report says the u.s. is on course to begin pulling troops out next year. do you hear that sentiment echoed in the has of the pentagon? you know, this is the stated policy. july 2011, troops will start coming home, but by all indications, it is going to be a
it is going to look more stalematish for a while before the rubber hits the road, say, in late june and july when you might start seeing some progress. at the same time, i went to a briefing at bloomberg this morning with chuck schumer. and schumer, who is a key player, as you know, says that the debt ceiling deadline really is sooner than august. he says that the markets are going to get very antsy if there isn t real progress. he thinks that there is some middle ground between the no tax pledge and the medicare refusal, some changes in medicare, but he doesn t want to see the overhaul, the paul ryan overhaul. at the same time, he thinks speaker boehner has to give, the house republicans will have to give on the tax side. reporter: it is interesting you bring up timing. i ve been hearing the same thing. democrats are pushing this idea that it needs to be dealt with sooner. republicans are saying no, no, no, we could wait a little bit. that s one disagreement there. aรง little bit