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Jawing for War

Jul 10, 2007

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Peter Baker and Karen DeYoung write in today’s Washington Post (emphasis added):

President Bush, facing a growing Republican revolt against his Iraq policy, has rejected calls to change course but will launch a campaign emphasizing his intent to draw down U.S. forces next year and move toward a more limited mission if security conditions improve, senior officials said yesterday.

Top administration officials have begun talking with key Senate Republicans to walk them through his view of the next phase in the war, beyond the troop increase he announced six months ago today. Bush plans to lay out what an aide called “his vision for the post-surge” starting in Cleveland today to assure the nation that he, too, wants to begin bringing troops home eventually.

Needlenose: “Bush says Godot won’t arrive in Iraq this year, but perhaps in 2008.”

Every now and then, when it’s politically expedient, someone trots out of the White House and declares “substantial withdrawals” are just around the corner. However, this must be a different corner from the one we allegedly turn from time to time, since the substantial withdrawals never happen.

To say that the White House is sending mixed signals right now is an understatement. ABC News reports the Bushies are in panic mode.

ABC News has been told the White House is in “panic mode” over the recent defections of Republican senators on the president’s stay-the-course policy in Iraq.

ABC must have forgotten the Bushies retired “stay the course” as a rhetorical device awhile back, but after turning that corner so many times it’s easy to become confused and disoriented.

Senior Bush administration officials are deep in discussion about how to find a compromise that will “appease Democrats and keep wobbly Republicans onboard,” a senior White House official told ABC News.

It’s not about what’s actually going on in Iraq, see. It’s not about the political situation over there. It’s about the political situation here. That’s what gets their attention. And they will bring the full power and intelligence and talent of everyone in the White House to bear on this problem. We should expect to see spin like we’ve never seen spin before.

Spotlight

5 Comments

merciless • Jul 10, 2007 @10:41 am

But I’m already so dizzy, I swear I’m gonna yak if I have to go through another Friedman’s worth of spin…
Jack K. • Jul 10, 2007 @11:21 am

We should expect to see spin like we’ve never seen spin before.

…yes, and we are seeing, courtesy of Saturday’s little fireside chat where Bush called the Democrats “do-nothing” failures, just how many red herrings, false leads, blind trails, and pigs in a poke we are going to be faced with. It will be a constant chorus of “Things Are Improving”, “It’s All The Democrats’ Fault”, and “Hey, Look! A CHICKEN!!” from now until Jan. 20, 2009…
joanr16 • Jul 10, 2007 @1:18 pm

Not just the war, but the spin is in an irretrievable situation. Every time the WH goes through another spin cycle on Iraq, Bush’s poll numbers drop another couple of points. Two percent fewer people who will even be paying any attention to his next round of bullshit.

Still too many recalcitrant Repugs in Congress to achieve an exit strategy, though. That’s what we need to be sure folks understand.
felicity • Jul 10, 2007 @2:19 pm

From now until November of ’08 we are all going to get top-of-the-line, very expensive if we had to pay for them, lessons in the art of stalling. I plan to take notes. (Probably learn some brilliant strategies on creating and setting up the red herring too.)
Swami • Jul 10, 2007 @3:08 pm

If ?…. si mi tia tuviera llantas… sería un camión.