It is not being politically biased to read this and say: it certainly does sound like “stay the course”:
Bush sought to pre-empt the growing clamor to withdraw the more than 140,000 U.S. troops stationed in Iraq, which has been fueled by the November Congressional elections and the expected conclusions of a high-level commission headed by former Secretary of State James C. Baker III and former Indiana Rep. Lee H. Hamilton. Although the president was not asked directly about the panel’s recommendations, which will be made next week but were partially leaked to news reporters late Wednesday, he seemed to have the group in mind when he said: “This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it whatsoever.”
Fairly definitive…athough he has made prouncements before (on keeping Donald Rumsfeld, on staying with the Dubai company controlling U.S. ports, etc) where he has changed a seemingly inflexible course before.
But if this holds it’s likely 2007 will see growing tensions between not just Democrats and the White House but some former members of the Bush 41 administration and members of the Republican party and the White House.
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.