I caught a bit of the President’s speech on Iraq last night. I didn’t go out of my way to listen, as I didn’t expect anything new.
Frankly, anyone who did expect anything new is a fool.
The speech before a captive audience and canned applause at Ft. Bragg was clearly nothing more than a publicity stunt, an attempt to shore up sagging support for the administration’s Iraq policy. While a few starry-eyed members of the media suggested that the Bush acknowledged the grim realities “on the ground,” it amounted (unsurprisingly) to little more than “stay the course,” “9/11,” and “anyone who questions me doesn’t support our troops.”
As I’ve stated previously, there’s really nothing new that the President can say about the war in Iraq. Any meaningful policy or strategy change would necessitate an admission by the White House that it’s policy/strategy up to this point has been ineffective. Given that their entire campaign for re-election was premised on the claim that they knew how to handle the problems in Iraq, such an admission is clearly not going to happen. Ergo, they’re stuck with saying and doing the same thing over and over.