The President Commits Rhetorical Suicide Again

If you are distracted by the Andy Card situation and his replacement by some one not named Karl, you might have missed this announcement after the president's cabinet meeting:

Tomorrow I'm going to deliver a third in a series of speeches about the situation in Iraq. During Saddam Hussein's brutal rule he exploited the ethnic and religious diversity of Iraq by setting communities against one another. And now the terrorists and former regime elements are doing the same -- they're trying to set off a civil war through acts of sectarian violence. But the United States and our Iraqi forces cannot be defeated militarily. The only thing the Iraqi insurgents, as well as the terrorists, can possibly do is to cause us to lose our nerve and retreat, to withdraw.

So, from this short paragraph we learn many things:

1. The president's propaganda catapult is armed and ready for another spin round the ex post facto justification for the Iraq folly tomorrow. Read: WMD and Smoking Gun = Bait - Removing Evil Dictator = Switch. I can't wait and am giddy with excitement.


2. It's not our fault if it looks like civil war in Iraq: It's the damned if we do damned if we don't situation the Clash put in their song - "Should I stay or should I go?"


3. To whom does that much maligned, much misunderstood, and frequently bombed Iraq Army belong when the President says "our Iraqi forces?"


4. Are we losing our nerve or are we just getting smarter? One thing is certain, it's not OUR nerve that got us into this mess, Mr. president.