Conceding Missteps, Bush Urges Patience on Iraq

[cal04]

Facing public dismay over the war in Iraq, President Bush on Wednesday somberly acknowledged the broad scope of American setbacks and missteps there. But he urged Americans to look beyond the violence on their TV screens and avoid disillusionment over a war he said was being won.

Mr. Bush’s comments, in a news conference at the White House, were a stark indication of concern within the West Wing over eroding support for the war. The violence in Iraq has reached near-record peaks just as voters are considering their final choices for Congress in midterm elections less than two weeks from now, a contest that Mr. Bush has cast in part as a national referendum on the conflict.

While most Republican candidates have sought to turn voters’ attention away from the war, Mr. Bush chose to address it head on, adopting a subdued tone, a new emphasis on tactical flexibility, and directly acknowledging the public’s reservations. News analysis, Page A12.

(snip)
Aides to Mr. Bush have acknowledged that the rising violence in Iraq was depressing support for the war. And the bad news was being amplified in Democratic campaign ads declaring the war a failure. In all, Democrats have had 220 ads mentioning Iraq, running them 46,402 times for a cost of at least $41.6 million since January, according to an analysis by the Campaign Media Analysis Group. Republicans have run 48 ads on the Iraq campaign 11,677 times for at least $8.5 million.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/26/world/middleeast/26prexy.html?hp&ex=1161835200&en=6eabba07bfbf4440&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. Perhaps he should try finding Bin Laden instead?

[MadMaddie]

2. Well the parents and families of the soldiers stuck there

have a right to be impatient and wanting a time table...screw him....

[saltpoint]

3. It would really be best if President Bush resigned.

He has mangled both U.S. foreign policy and domestic policy, some with the assistance of greedy and incompetent staff and Cabinet, and some all on his own.

Our allies are either suspicious of us, or contemptuous.

Court appointments have been in-your-face contrarians or demonic lizards (read: Alito). Lower court appointments have been as bad or worse.

Elders in his own party now publicly insist on a change-of-course in Iraq, even as Bush's vice president claims things are going "remarkably well."

At his press conferences he sounds like he's speaking Cubist English. He sounds fragmented, desperate, embattled, pissed off, accusatory, and unfocused.

If anyone disagrees with him, that person is branded a traitor, someone less than American, someone apt to lend comfort to the enemy.

We never hear about restoring quality of life in Afghanistan or Iraq at all -- only about standing down when the Iraqis stand up, only about the threat of terrorists, most of whom weren't there at all until we showed up.

The next two years of his life are going to be contentious and defeating.

Everyone on earth, if they don't already, will regard him as the visible failure in U.S. presidential history.

The president should resign. November 8th, after his party loses both chambers of the Congress, would be a good time.

Cheney too. I wouldn't miss either one of them.