Today the White House announced a delay in the President's speech about the "New Way Forward." Well, according to Tony Snow it's not actually a delay since they didn't make any promises, they just hoped to... Evidently the BushCo has a lot to think about with all this new listening they've been doing. I guess nobody's noticed things were going badly prior to ISG finding it out. Apparently the three blind mice, Condi, Donny, and Dicky, missed it. I don't want to be picky about this, but shortly after Saddam's statue got pulled down things started going south, a couple years ought to allow for some notice.
The "New Way" was supposed to get its unveiling (aagh!!) shortly before Christmas, now around the second week of January. Sounds like about three weeks of extra thinking to be done and assuming that means no actual policy until around then at the average rate of 6 American deaths per day it shouldn't cost more than about 130 troops' lives. Maybe from DC that's small change, I'd bet it's a bit more than that to families and friends. Of course there's a lag in implementing strategy, there sure have been some lags. All this makes the assumption that George II is going to come up with something new, other than a new slogan.
I wouldn't bet anything I cared about on that one, this outfit shows little sign of paying attention. There's a Legacy to be considered. When you start down the Legacy trail with a pre-emptive war started under false considerations that degenerated into civil war, there's a ways to go to have it look good. This fighter jock (cough) has proven to be persevering - ok - stubborn and to keep coming up with spin based slogans that're empty of action content. A little prediction: there'll be a middle finger extended to Congress, the voters, and the polls - A New Way Forward is a different spelling of Stay the Course which was a different spelling of ... With war polls of 75% disapprove, 21% approve it becomes important to not say things the same way, which will bump the conservative base percentage since he's...said something.
The sheep population of Congress is somewhat smaller in January but I wouldn't make any silly bets on that either. The American public - gee, I don't know - I've been astonished for over three years by gullibility, fear, and complacency. I suppose holding Congress' feet to the fire may make some difference, but I'm not even sure a couple million Americans surrounding the White House would make that difference. The guy is worried about what scholars will think about him after he's dead, that makes now kind of a non-starter.
2 comments:
I've heard different reasons to explain the delay in announcing the new strategy. Personally, I think Bush just doesn't want to bother with thinking during his vacation. Seriously, he's that disconnected & lazy to just not give a rat's ass about the probable casualties over the next month if it costs him any time on the bicycle.
That's probably as reasonable as any that exists.
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