As someone who has his own snarky tendencies, I am really starting to have a hard time discerning when Matt Yglesias is being serious and when he is being sarcastic these days. For example, he writes of President Obama’s Iraq speech last night that

I think Barack Obama’s Iraq policy was perfectly clear as of last week—war kinda sorta ending on August 31, 2010 and more honest-to-god ending in December 2011—so I wasn’t exactly glued to the set to watch his speech last night.

So Obama’s “perfectly clear” Iraq policy is that “the war” “kinda sorta ended” yesterday, and will have a “more honest-to-god [than kinda sorta?]” end on New Year’s Eve next year? But when does it just plain end?

Or maybe the best way to clear this up would be if I could put Tom Ricks’ question to Matt: “How many U.S. military personnel will be in Iraq four years from today — that is, Feb. 25, 2014?” Or if we’re assuming one term, by January 2013?