Wash Post on Bush's STAY THE COURSE FLIP-FLOP

[PalJoey]

Posted: 10/24/06 at 8:06am

Analysis
Bush's New Tack Steers Clear of 'Stay the Course'

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 24, 2006; Page A01

President Bush and his aides are annoyed that people keep misinterpreting his Iraq policy as "stay the course." A complete distortion, they say. "That is not a stay-the-course policy," White House press secretary Tony Snow declared yesterday.

Where would anyone have gotten that idea? Well, maybe from Bush.

"We will stay the course. We will help this young Iraqi democracy succeed," he said in Salt Lake City in August.

"We will win in Iraq so long as we stay the course," he said in Milwaukee in July.

"I saw people wondering whether the United States would have the nerve to stay the course and help them succeed," he said after returning from Baghdad in June.

But the White House is cutting and running from "stay the course." A phrase meant to connote steely resolve instead has become a symbol for being out of touch and rigid in the face of a war that seems to grow worse by the week, Republican strategists say. Democrats have now turned "stay the course" into an attack line in campaign commercials, and the Bush team is busy explaining that "stay the course" does not actually mean stay the course.

Instead, they have been emphasizing in recent weeks how adaptable the president's Iraq policy actually is. Bush remains steadfast about remaining in Iraq, they say, but constantly shifts tactics and methods in response to an adjusting enemy. "What you have is not 'stay the course' but in fact a study in constant motion by the administration," Snow said yesterday.

Political rhetoric, of course, is often in constant motion as well. But with midterm elections two weeks away, the Bush team is searching for a formula to address public opposition to the war, struggling to appear consistent and flexible at the same time. That was underscored by the reaction to a New York Times report that the administration is drafting a timetable for the Iraqi government to disarm militias and assume a larger security role. The White House initially called the story "inaccurate." But then White House counselor Dan Bartlett went on CNN yesterday morning to call it "a little bit overwritten" because in fact it was something the administration had been doing for months.

The president has shifted language on Iraq before. At a news conference in August, he returned to his prewar argument that Saddam Hussein harbored terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Hussein "had relations with Zarqawi," Bush said. Weeks later, the Senate intelligence committee concluded that Hussein "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye to Zarqawi" and that the U.S. government knew that before the invasion. At his next news conference, Bush was asked about that. "I never said there was an operational relationship," he said.

Bush used "stay the course" until recent weeks when it became clear that it was becoming a political problem....

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Analysis: Bush's New Tack Steers Clear of 'Stay the Course'

[PalJoey]

Posted: 10/24/06 at 8:14am

[Auggie27]

Posted: 10/24/06 at 9:30am

It would be screamingly funny, this bafoonery, employing semantics to avoid responsibility and the appearance of a ass-saving changed strategy ... if the stakes weren't so pitifully high. Watching Bush and his regime sneer and cajole reporters these past two ugly weeks, as the deaths mounted, was particularly unseemly. And on Fox News? The big story is ground zero skulls, sad as it is, because it allowed them to replay the falling WTC in place of the carnage in Iraq.

Did anyone see the tightly-wound Barney Frank on Bill Maher Friday (repeated on HBO last night). Frank was something we don't get: honest and pissed off. He wouldn't put up with any of the jokey rhetoric that passes for punditry, because he was so damned mad. If Democrats don't display outrage now, the cause is lost.

[Mamie]

Posted: 10/24/06 at 9:48am

I saw this headline in the Post this morning but I was so disgusted by earlier political news that I didn't have the heart to read it. I mean, the title says it all.

The earlier news concerned that horse's rear end, George Allen. Apparently he still holds a lead over Jim Webb in Virginia. God I want out of this state so bad! I just hate taking one more clear thinker out of the electorate here.

[robbiej]

Posted: 10/24/06 at 10:43am

I was home sick last week for a couple of days and, in my weakened state, didn't change the channel fast enough when Bush was on screen. And he was SHOUTING. I mean...SHOUTING. I was like, 'What's HER problem?' It's never good when the leader of the free world is shouting.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/24/06 at 10:58am

When he's speaking in public at his very best, W is in a clipped state of pique. On average, which is to say most of the time, he's petulant. At his worst, he yells with the arrogance of a man whom you know would like to begin each sentence with "How DARE you question me?"

[robbiej]

Posted: 10/24/06 at 11:07am

And he's indignant because, for YEARS, the press were so deferential. No longer. They've found a set of balls (raisin-sized, perhaps, but they're there) and W. has no idea how to 'change tactics' to deal with it.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 10/24/06 at 2:44pm

Have you all been following his running battles with tall handsome David Gregory from NBC?

The site that must not be named has clips of David's appearance with Jay Leno last week, during which David did his hysterically funny Dubya imitation.

[Dakin]

Posted: 10/24/06 at 9:55pm

This is the most foolish of the manufactured scandals of the dems this year.

Best wishes on November 7. Will all of the news reports today, what will dems do if they don't take both houses?

Cut and Run with Murtha.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 10/24/06 at 10:02pm

How is pointing out the facts "maufactured"?

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 10/24/06 at 10:45pm

Can David Gregory run for office?