Oops. Herr Gropinator has gone off the reservation:

WASHINGTON - Aligning himself with congressional Democrats in the debate on the Iraq war, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Sunday that the United States needs to set clear timelines for bringing soldiers home, lest Iraq devolve into a quagmire with no end in sight.

Republican Schwarzenegger, speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” said Americans will not support a war that becomes an open-ended commitment — a point, he said, that needs to be made to the Iraqis.

“We should let the Iraqis know that we are here until this time. And then we’re going to draw back,” Schwarzenegger said. “We’re going to draw our troops out of Iraq. I think a timeline is absolutely important, because I think that the people in America don’t want to see another Korean war, another Vietnam war, where it’s an open-ended thing.”

In Washington for an annual meeting of U.S. governors, Schwarzenegger is staking out a position at odds with that of his party’s leader, President Bush, who in a Feb. 14 news conference said, “The operation to secure Baghdad is going to take time.”

Vice President Dick Cheney dismissed the notion of fixed dates for troop withdrawal as recently as last week. “I don’t think you can put a timetable on it.” Cheney also has castigated congressional Democrats for opposing Bush’s planned “surge” of 21,500 soldiers to secure Baghdad, saying that approach would “validate the Al-Qaida strategy.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday spoke out against efforts in Congress to limit the role of U.S. forces in Iraq, saying Bush would not allow himself to be constrained by such a “micromanagement of military affairs.”

Asked whether Bush would abide by a binding resolution, now being drafted by Democratic leaders, that would include the start of troop withdrawal from Iraq, Rice told “Fox News Sunday” that such a proposal would go against his efforts to support the “flexibility of our commanders to do what they think they need to do on the ground.”

“I can’t imagine a circumstance in which it’s a good thing that their flexibility is constrained by people sitting here in Washington, sitting in the Congress, trying to micromanage this war,” Rice said. “I just don’t think it’s a good thing.”

Schwarzenegger’s position puts him to the left of most Republicans in Congress and those running for president. At minimum, most Democrats have called for setting a timetable for withdrawal, with some going so far as to set a specific date for removing U.S. soldiers.

The governor offered no dates in his remarks Sunday.

I swore off CA politics when the Walnut Stuffed Condom won the election. But it’s pretty clear that Maria isn’t going to let him throw away all the political clout he married into. The wind is blowing clearly away from the warmonger’s camp, and Arnold must want to have a long term political future. I’m not exactly “happy” with him so much as I’m glad to see that he’s been forced into less fascist positions. Keep up the pressure, Californians.