There He Goes Again By Eugene Robinson(Bush and civil war)

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There He Goes Again

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/30/AR2006113001162.html
By Eugene Robinson
Friday, December 1, 2006; Page A29

Coherent speech is not one of George W. Bush's gifts, so it's brave of him to hang so tough in a fight over semantics. Ultimately, the latest line the president has drawn in the sands of Mesopotamia -- that there's not a civil war, no matter what anybody says -- is indefensible, like all his previous lines. But who cares?

I'm being flip; of course we should care about the terrible carnage in Iraq. But arguing whether it does or does not meet some textbook definition of civil war is a distraction and a waste of time. Whatever you call the chaos that American bumbling has allowed, it is what it is. "Stuff happens," as Donald Rumsfeld once said.

Call it civil war, call it "stuff," call it whatever you want. Historians will make the final judgment, long after American troops have come home. Assuming they ever do come home.

"We're going to stay in Iraq to get the job done," the Decider said yesterday at his news conference in Amman, Jordan, with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. To paraphrase a president who knew how to speak very well, there he goes again.



Having been whopped upside the head with a two-by-four, metaphorically speaking, other Republicans are now paying attention. "We certainly got the message," incoming Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said the other day in a meeting with Post editors and reporters. U.S. policy on Iraq, he said, is "heading in some different direction. That's perfectly apparent."