I think it's great.  It would be a shame if he's punished for speaking the truth.  

Senator Obama immediately recanted that choice of words in an interview shortly after the speech.

From the Washington Post:

The senator from Illinois later said he regretted his choice of words, telling an interviewer that he meant the troops' sacrifices "have not been honored" by an adequate policy.

Having said that, I feel the Senator inadvertantly articulated a politically incorrect feeling which many of us have shared in our private thoughts about this tragic adventure.  If he is attacked for it he will have an open invitation to respond specifically to the inexcusable sacrifice of loyal US servicepeople by an incompetent administration prosecuting a questionalbe and failed war.

Jake Tapper on ABC just jumped on this. According to him, Obama "stumbled" by saying this. Of course, I think that's a bunch of crap and that's the first time that I heard the media attack him for saying that.

Merriam Webster dictionary defines "wasted" as:

to spend or use carelessly : SQUANDER "waste valuable resources" b : to allow to be used inefficiently or become dissipated "a writer wasting her talent" http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/wasted

By this definition, it's clear that the soldiers' lives were wasted, because they were "used and spent carelessly", they were "used inefficiently" and as a result they were "squandered".  If the soldiers lives were not wasted, then logically Bush has not been "careless" and "inefficient".  If Bush has not been careless and inefficient, then why are we opposing his war?

There is a "support the troops" myth that we should never say that a soldier's life was wasted even if we know that s/he was sent into a battle that could never have been won.  We ought never admit that a soldier has died because of the carelessness and incompetent warmaking inefficiency, because to say this would wound the pride, vanity and greed of the political class who sent the soldiers there in the first place.  This myth does not serve Democrats, soldiers or the social class from which most soldiers come.  

This "no life is wasted" myth serves only those who want to continue wasting soldiers' lives without accepting responsibility for their wanton immorality and incompetence.  Should we also agree with Republicans that no money has been "wasted" in Iraq, to avoid feeling the grief of those whose hard-earned money will never achieve its intended purposes?

Here, we have a MUCH more important opportunity and responsibility than in any other recent case to shout down the Republican noise machine on this matter of principle, since we are about to waste even more lives in Iran unless we open our mouths and demand an end to the waste of human lives - theirs and ours.

It is time that we take Senator Barack Obama's leadership on this, support him, and tell Bush, "STOP WASTING THE LIVES OF OUR SOLDIERS".