The meetings are now becoming more high-profile as the date approaches when a potentially policy-changing report is released:
President Bush, after meeting Monday with a bipartisan group seeking consensus on a new approach for the war in Iraq, said “I’m not going to prejudge” the report the panel soon will issue.
“I’m not sure what the report is going to say. I look forward to seeing it,” Bush told reporters in the Oval Office at the conclusion of a separate meeting he had with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Bush said the goal in Iraq still is “a government that can sustain and defend itself” and said “the best military options depend on conditions on the ground.”
White House press secretary Tony Snow earlier described the meeting as a conversation in which both sides shared views. “This is not a deposition,” he said. Further, Snow said there was not a presentation of alternatives but rather an assessment of the situation on the ground now.
There is already considerable speculation on what this commission will ultimtely mean. One view is that the fact that it’s headed by James Baker, former Secretary of State under the first President George Bush, means that it’s Bush 41’s team trying to come to the rescue of Bush 43 (and his already tarnished legacy) by providing alternative policy options. Another is that it will give “political cover” to a White House that feels admitting error is worse than having two root canals uplled — without anesthetic.Bush can shift policy while not admitting it’s a shift due to the war being poorly planned and run and say he’s essentially agreeing to a bipartisan quality control. One issue will be how blunt the report will be about it’s findings.
There are also several theories about what will happen, ranging from Bush embracing it, embracing part of it, saying he embraces it but effectively deep-sixing it by going super-slow on recommendations or taking issue with details until it’s watered down…or any combination of the above.
The bottom line is that no matter what it suggests, the report is going to be a watershed that will likely not please those on the right who feel there need to be more troops to win the war or those on the left who feel the U.S. should either pull out now or fix a date and pull out soon.
But no matter what, Bush will ignore its recommendations at his continued political peril.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.