In Election Push, Bush Faults Talk of Iraq Pullout

Bush has laid out his planned means of attacking the Democrats before November's mid term elections, he plans to label them as "cut and runners" from Iraq.

It's hardly an original plan but he's really not got much else in his meagre box of tricks to play with. His plan is that the US should "stay the course" which is really a euphemism for hanging on grimly until he can hand the whole problem over to his successor and leave office having never had to accept the size of the defeat he has delivered to the nation.

If one looks at any opinion polls then one sees that the position of the Democrats is actually the position of the country at large, with a clear majority now against the war and favouring some kind of withdrawal.

Bush decided to challenge this position with a repetition of some of his most worn cliches:

“These are challenging times, and they’re difficult times, and they’re straining the psyche of our country,” Mr. Bush said in an hour-long news conference. “Nobody wants to turn on their TV on a daily basis and see havoc wrought by terrorists.”

“What matters is that in this campaign that we clarify the different points of view,” Mr. Bush said from the press secretary’s lectern in the White House conference center up the street from the Oval Office. “And there are a lot of people in the Democrat Party who believe that the best course of action is to leave Iraq before the job is done, period, and they’re wrong.”

Once again he fails to define what he himself feels "needs to be done". Surely a President with vision would at this point lay out his plan to reverse Iraq from splintering into civil war. Bush says nothing on this leaving one to presume that he's simply repreating his belief that the US should "stay the course". Once again he seeks to use stubbornness as a replacement for policy.

Nancy Pelosi called him on it nicely:

“The president’s promise to keep American forces in Iraq as long as he is in office is no substitute for an effective plan to complete the mission,” Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, said in a statement, referring to Mr. Bush’s promise that “we’re not leaving so long as I’m president.”

And that really is all his policy boils down to. A deep desire to pass the problem to someone else. It's a shameful position.

The Republicans have decided they might get away with this if they cast Iraq as part of the broader war on terror, but even the supine American Press seem unwilling to allow Bush to play that card anymore.

When Mr. Bush referred to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on Monday in reference to a question about Iraq, a reporter pressed him, “What did Iraq have to do with that?”

“Nothing,” Mr. Bush responded somewhat testily, adding, “Nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack.”

Leading up to the invasion in March 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney did call attention to the theory, since discredited, that one of the Sept. 11 hijackers might have met in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence officer.

Bush continues to tank in the polls, and there's nothing to suggest that hitting this tired old drum is going to change this.

In many ways this press conference highlighted the degree to which the Bush administration has become a spent force, trapped in Iraq with no viable exit strategy that allows them to save face, they simply plan to linger. To hang on. To insist against all prevailing evidence that the plan is working. Indeed, to pretend that they even have a plan.

As for public opinion, Bush stated:

“Presidents care about whether people support their policies,” and acknowledged, “Of course I care.”

But, he added, “I’m going to do what I think is right, and if people don’t like me for it, that’s just the way it is.”

In other words, "I have no other plan. I'm stuck. But, at least I'm not a cut and runner."

UPDATE:

I've just had a look at how the right wing blogs are covering this same press conference. Over at Powerline it is bordering on orgasmic. Apparently he handled himself with:

Wit, humor, insight, and dogged fidelity to the principles he has advanced from September 12, 2001, to the present.

I take it that "dogged fidelity" is a polite way of making my point that he's basically beating the same tired drum he's been hitting since 9-11.

Powerline also implies that Helen Thomas is anti-Israeli for asking the question:

Israel broke its word twice on a truce. And you mentioned Hezbollah rockets, but it's -- Israeli bombs have destroyed Lebanon. Why do you always give them a pass? And what's your view on breaking of your oath for a truce?

Why is asking that question "anti-Israeli"? Bush's answer is the usual tripe, but he does trot out one cliche that recent events simply render bizarre:

I said that Israel, one, has a right to defend herself, but Israel ought to be cautious about how she defends herself.

I presume he thinks bombing the unarmed civilian population of Lebanon back two decades is somehow Israel expressing "caution". His cliches no longer even attempt to correlate with reality. He's simply living in his own bubble now, aided by sites like Powerline who hear "dogged fidelity" where the rest of us hear mindless repetition.

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Tags: Bush, Iraq, Democrats, Republicans, Mid term, elections, November