President Bush is doing the hard, hard work of trying to convince the
American people that Iraq is doing pretty well; that even though there
are hardships, we must prevail; that the <a
href=”http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/21/bush.transcript/”>”Iraqi
security forces are maintaining law and order”; etc. We know the
drill; it’s been the same for the three years that the war has dragged
on. Bad news, every single day, and the President offers us nothing new.
For me, listening to the President speak about Iraq gives me an idea
what it must be like to listen to some Communist dictator: Platitudes,
ignorance, lies … and as Josh Marshall points out, <a
href=”http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007956.php”>you can’t
really tell which is which; what Bush believes, and what he knows
isn’t so. That’s this President’s greatest strength and mystery.
Howard Kurtz correctly says that the <a
href=”http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/03/22/BL2006032200400.html?nav=rss_politics”>American
people have tuned the President out, which is requiring a change in
PR strategy at the White House. At least the President has stopped
running away from old ladies with attitudes:
Bush did find a useful foil at the presser in calling on
liberal
columnist Helen Thomas for the first time in three years. She attacked
the war and essentially accused him of lying about why he took the
country to war, allowing Bush not only to punch back but to show the
country that he’s up against a left-wing press corps.
Real “Profiles in Courage” stuff, huh? As Kurtz later points out, the PR “shift” isn’t a shift at all. Facts
haven’t changed President’s mind about a single thing. And so the
American public correctly assumes that he doesn’t know or doesn’t care,
and he’ll certainly never fix it. The President still can’t answer the <a
href=”http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2004c.html”>question posed to
him the ’04 debates: “Please give three instances in which you came
to realize you had made a wrong decision, and what you did to correct
it.”
And that’s the problem. He’s said, “You may not agree with me, but you
know where I stand.” Yes, we do. You’re neck deep in rising water, and
you don’t seem to be doing anything about it.
The President will gain back some credibility with the public
when he musters the courage to change course; in other words, when he
is courageous enough to become a flip-flopper.
I’m not holding my breath.
Perhaps it’s because I am now working overseas and can’t sense these things well, but I’m at a loss as to why Bush’s incredible, stunning failure in the entire Iraq episode hasn’t opened him up to more direct, pointed, and constant criticism from the opposition. Maybe it’s because there is no real opposition? How about Bush’s astounding admission that the quagmire in Iraq (the shorthand for this was “U.S. troop presence”) was a problem that would be solved by future presidents and future governments in Iraq? Isn’t he essentially saying that, at this point, he can coast the rest of the way?
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It would appear he can, because he knows no one is really going to criticize him too strongly. After all, as he himself said at the press conference, “I did notice that nobody from the Democratic Party has actually stood up and called for the getting rid of the terrorist surveillance program. You know, if that’s what they believe, if people in the party believe that, then they ought to stand up and say it.” This statement is demagoguery and it should be challenged. And people should be asking — OK, Mr. President, if you’re leaving Iraq to future leaders, then who’s going to be our president for the next three years?
I have to say that I’m just waiting for one Democrat to come out and say “I voted for the war. But I never imagined I was voting for such an incompetant, incomprehensible, and unplanned war that our government has foist upon us. I thought Saddam was dangerous. But the way we have waged this war has put us in far more danger than we were ever in when Saddam was in power. If I could go back in time, of course I’d vote against this war, or any war that this administration offered to take us into. They can’t be trusted.”
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But the few times those who voted for war have been approached and asked if they regret their votes, few have the guts to really say so.
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The Dems are weak because they let the Republicans define them. It’s time for us to define ourselves. Show what we are for, not what we are against.
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As for Bush, I will give him at least credit on this front: I have been assuming all along that we’d pull about 1/3 of the troops out this August to help him win the midterms. And the rest would come out in August of 2008 to help his successor in the GOP. I at least will admire the man for the “moral clarity” he seems to hold that this war is “good” and we’ll stay to the end, even if that means someone else gets to clean up his mess. I was far more cynical about his intentions, I suppose, and am surprised that he actually seems to have some principle involved in staying. No matter how flawed or ridiculous that principle may be.