The Doc Is In

“Lonely at the top” was my reaction to President Bush’s address to the nation last night. Faced with a war that many now suggest was ill-advised, an electorate that delivered a “thumpin” in November, and a military that apparently is divided in terms of whether or not the war can be successfully prosecuted, he is faced with a decision that only history can determine as to it’s correctness. If today’s early internet articles (see a few excerpts below) are any indication, it appears that the media is lined up to hammer Mr. Bush’s decision. Add to this the usual Washington political jockeying for power, even within the Republican party, and you have a recipe for “no win” even if we just “turn tail” and withdraw from Iraq now.

Gerard Baker of The Times of London says: “President Bush’s address to the nation last night was not just a rejection of the political clamor at home for an early withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. It was not simply a rebuff to those in his own party and in the Pentagon who believe that victory in Iraq is irretrievable from the mire in which the US finds itself. It was not merely an admission of mistakes in the execution of this calamitous war so far.It was a clarion reaffirmation, even in the midst of unparalleled adversity, of the entire foreign policy strategy that drove the Bush administration in the weeks and months after September 11, 2001. It was a defiant and ringing rededication of a beleaguered president in the final two years of his term to the revolution in global affairs he unleashed five years ago.”….

The New York Times‘ Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes: ” By stepping up the American military presence in Iraq, President Bush is not only inviting an epic clash with the Democrats who run Capitol Hill. He is ignoring the results of the November elections, rejecting the central thrust of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group and flouting the advice of some of his own generals, as well as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq. In so doing, Mr. Bush is taking a calculated gamble that no matter how much hue and cry his new strategy may provoke, in the end the American people will give him more time to turn around the war in Iraq and Congress will not have the political nerve to thwart him by cutting off money for the war.” …

Howard Fineman of Newsweek could read Bush’s face: “George W. Bush spoke with all the confidence of a perp in a police lineup. I first interviewed the guy in 1987 and began covering his political rise in 1993, and I have never seen him, in public or private, look less convincing, less sure of himself, less cocky. With his knitted brow and stricken features, he looked, well, scared. Not surprising since what he was doing in the White House library was announcing the escalation of an unpopular war. The president may well be right that we cannot afford to leave or lose in Iraq . He makes profound sense when he observes that a collapse of Iraq would mean the rise of a giant version of the Taliban’s Afghanistan—with a million times the oil in the ground. But if he was trying to assure the country that he had confidence in his own plan to prevent that collapse, well, a picture is worth a thousand words.”…

Michael Duffy writing in Time says, “Coming after years of insisting that conditions were improving in Iraq when just about everyone could see that they were not, the speech at least paid Americans the courtesy of candor. Bush conceded that his policies were not working and, contrary to what he and other senior officials had insisted for months, that more troops were now needed. He said his new approach might not show results anytime soon and, as bad as that sounds, the alternatives were worse, he claimed. Bush did not say he had made a tragic mistake, but he came closer than he ever had before. “Where mistakes have been made,” the President declared, “the responsibility rests with me.” Still, Bush faces a huge personal and political crisis over the surge. Even before the speech, moderate Republicans in his own party were busy releasing statements opposing the reinforcements and Democrats were still plotting how to bring the proposed increase to a vote in some way to allow members to express their unhappiness with the conduct of the war and the new US strategy. “Escalation won’t solve the problem,” said Sen. Joseph Biden. “It will compound it.” ….

Meanwhile, over at Hot Air there are lots of folks taking on the media.