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President Bush and Iraq: Kicking the Can Down the Road to 2009

September 19th, 2007
By SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist

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Am I the only person who didn’t realize until after President Bush’s speech last week on Iraq that he all but came out and said what we have known for some time — that it would be up to his successor to end the war?

You too, eh?

In retrospect, this was far and away the most important aspect of a speech that has been dissected to a fairthewell but an aspect that was overlooked by a mainstream media that seems only marginally capable to sussing out the big picture.

There are three different groups of Americans when it comes to the war these days, and polling after Progress Report Week showed that virtually no one’s mind was changed:

* The vast majority who just want the war to go away and are literally and figuratively shopping at the mall where, poor dears, they may inconveniently catch a glimpse of a bloody street scene from Iraq on the TVs in the window of an electronics store.

These are the people that the White House is really counting on.

* The small but vocal minority for whom the war started in January with the advent of the surge strategy. The nearly four years between the fall of Saddam Hussein are a blur, don’t count, or both — and the limited successes of recent weeks are all they need to get behind “Return to Success,” the Orwellian name of the administration’s latest slogan for Bush’s Forever War.

These are the people that the White House is counting on to push back against the third group.

* This is the also small but vocal minority whose memories are not so short. We have not forgotten the insurgency, the collapse of the Provisional Coalition Authority, the first battle of Falluja, the Abu Ghraib scandal, the onset of a civil war and the emergence of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as a result of a failed occupation.

Please click here to read more at Kiko’s House.



This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 19th, 2007 at 2:50 am and is filed under Gen. Petraeus, Withdrawal, Military Affairs, Surge, Condoleezza Rice, Iraq, Democrats, George W. Bush, 2008 Elections. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

 
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