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Keith wrote: Karen, If Bush's speech is going to have
more than a temporary effect on the trend going against him then he's going to
need a far smarter speech-writer than Karl Rove. Bush's second-term inaugural
speech was a disaster for him. It doesn’t
matter who is frozen out or not, but will the policy be realistic and will the
messenger be honest? I agree with
Beinart that until Bush talks straight with the American public, it doesn’t
matter how lofty the words are now.
Only a direct attack on our shores will shock the wishy washy from
seeking shelter in the web of deception again. The déjà vu factor is growing. There are too
many politicians who remember Watergate and the lasting distrust it generated
of government in general and Republicans specifically. Unless an attack happens, there will be
fewer GOP in Congress who will take chances with Bush, whether they are up for
reelection next year or not. Bush, Cheney
and Rumsfeld must stop making this war a partisan battle. It’s backfiring on
them. It turns out that young Republicans want to defend the war, but not serve
in it. The “base” Republicans want
to fight cultural wars, not ones with live ammunition. Kerry’s
article outlined several critical points that would improve the credibility
factor and legitimize the end product, now a nation building exercise:
Several have taken the opportunity to rebut and refine the message
Americans will hear. One, not surprisingly, is Sen. Kerry, the “dragon slayed”
by the Rove Smear Machine, currently dba Policy Advisor but using the same
playbook as the permanent campaign chief.
Another critic is Peter Beinart, one of the signers who wrote the
President encouraging a larger military force in Iraq. Here is Beinart’s commentary and the link to Kerry’s follows. I don’t
agree with Beinart’s assumption that Iraq isn’t already in civil war, or that
it is an established state at this time in its history, and doubt, like
military experts who’ve allowed themselves to say it, that the Iraqi Army will
be sufficient to the task created for them in approximately two years. But his comments about conduct unbecoming make it impossible for
those few diehards left who believe every word said in the past to ignore that
leadership doesn’t come in a bottle, and it isn’t vaccinated by a born again
experience, either. The charade must end. Time For Some
Humility, Mr. President By Peter Beinart, in The Oregonian, June 28,
2005, page B7 President Bush and Democratic Rep. Lynn
Woolsey of California deserve each other. Woolsey is a founder of the newly
created Our of Iraq Congressional Caucus. She recently told Roll Call that
“Success for us is two words: Troops. Home.” That’s breathtakingly irresponsible. Of
course, success means eventually bringing American troops home. But it also
means ensuring that Iraq doesn’t dissolve into civil war. Preventing Iraq from becoming a failed
state that exports a new generation of jihadists killers is vital to American
security. And making sure we don’t abandon the Iraqi people to Lebanon-style
slaughter is vital to American honor. Woolsey doesn’t seem to understand that. But the Out of Iraq Caucus didn’t come from nowhere. It’s the result of
President Bush’s ongoing refusal to speak honestly about the war. All but the
most die-hard sycophants now acknowledge that before the war the Bush
administration exaggerated the threat from Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass
destruction and terrorist ties. And that it lowballed the costs – in money,
troops and time – of building a stable, liberal government in Baghdad. Yet even
today the president keeps playing the same dishonest games. In his June 18
radio address, Bush said, in the context of Iraq, that “we went to war because
we were attacked,” He’s still
implying a connection between Saddam Hussein and Sept. 11, 2001 – even now! A plurality of Americans now believe they
were “deliberately misled” before the war. When the president talks to the
country about Iraq tonight, he needs to address that. Otherwise, he’ll never have the credibility to tell
Americans the harsh truth: that Iraqi troops won’t be ready to defend their
government for two years or more.
And until they can, brave young US soldiers will have to keep doing the
job. A good way to begin addressing this credibility gap is by dumping John
Bolton. The nomination of Bolton is a giant declaration that the
Bush administration still thinks it did nothing wrong on prewar intelligence.
As undersecretary of state for arms control, Bolton tried to hype the threat
from Cuba, Syria and Iraq. And
when intelligence analysts opposed him, he tried to fire them. Now the Bush
administration wants to send him to the United Nations so he can opine about US
intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program – and be laughed out of the building. Then Bush should dump Donald Rumsfeld – whose
continued employment signals that the Bush administration still thinks it did
nothing wrong on prewar planning.
Rumsfeld’s refusal to listen to the Army, the State Department, outside
experts and even conservative pundits who said that America needed more troops
to secure postwar Iraq constitutes, in the words of Larry Diamon, a former
Coalition Provisional Authority senior adviser, “criminal negligence.” How can Bush offer credible
strategy for winning peace if he relies on an utterly discredited defense
secretary to carry it out? President Bush famously hates admitting
mistakes. And he generally plays
to his base. But on Iraq, those instincts are driving his administration off a
cliff. The vast majority of
Democrats, and most independents, now think Iraq was a mistake. And the calls
for withdrawal are moving from the fringes of American politics to the center. Congressional Democrats must resist those
calls. As retired Gen. Anthony
Zinni, a fierce critic of the war, recently explained, even a timetable for
withdrawal is a terrible idea. Knowing America was on its way out would
embolden the insurgency and undermine Iraqis risking their lives to build a
free country. But if Bush wants to
stem the rising sentiment for withdrawal, he needs to do something he has
avoided for more than two years: He needs to make this a national war, not a
partisan one. That means
appointing independent figures to key jobs – people like Richard Lugar or Sam
Nunn, who come from outside the conservative cocoon. And it means speaking
about Iraq with a humility that this administration has richly earned. For America to win in Iraq, President Bush
first needs to win back America’s trust. Let’s hope it’s not too late. Peter Beinart is
editor of the New Republic and a guest scholar at the Brookings Institute. Sen. John Kerry: The Speech the President Should Give http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/opinion/28kerry.html?
and http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/062805Y.shtml |
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