President Set To Increase Troops In Iraq? Subtitle: Will Tony's Statement Prove to Be Yet Another Politically Motivated Lie?

The President wanted to launch the propaganda catapult regarding the Iraq situation some time before Christmas, but his staff won't let him. Of course, there is a tremendous amount of speculation as to why that might be.

One reason might be that the man has no clue which direction to go. As was articulated by a number of people, the situation in Iraq has no good options, only bad choices.

Another reason is that, perhaps, the American people "don't have the stomach for it" given that we are in full blown holiday season gorging ourselves in capitalistic abandon. May be some truth to that, eh?

Here's one more:

Q So just to get this clear, the reason for the delay is, number one, the complexity of the Iraq issue, and not because the President learned something in the last week that changed his mind?

MR. SNOW: That is correct. There are also even other considerations that I've not yet mentioned. For instance, we'll be swearing in a new Secretary of Defense next Monday. The Secretary of Defense is in the process not only of getting his arms around what's going on within the Department of Defense proper -- and now, as you know, Bob Gates did attend today's SVTS, and he will be shadowing meetings from now until the time he does assume office -- but also he has made it clear that he plans to visit the region and to, as one of my colleagues put it, kick the tires, to get a sense of what's going on. All those things are necessary, too, because his input is not only going to be valuable, but necessary as a man who is going to be responsible for implementing a large part of this.

That is not the single factor that is influencing this. But again, there has not been a single development, it's not Baker-Hamilton-driven. It is simply driven by the fact that as the President moves toward a decision on this, he still has facts that he wants people to examine. He wants policies that he wants people to take a look at, and he has assigned tasks to try to make sure that things are feasible, that everything is lined up in the proper way, that it meets the conditions of being able to work with the Iraqis, that we've addressed all of the regional concerns, that he's tried to take care of every possible consideration and concern before announcing the way forward.

Q Is it possible that the President does not want to announce the deployment of thousands of more U.S. troops to Iraq before the holidays?

MR. SNOW: No, it has nothing to do with that. Cynical, but false.

Here's where I think Mr. Snow is getting himself tangled in yet another politically motivated lie. Certainly, as I have suggested before, as well as other bloggers, the solution to Iraq may mean substantial increases in troop presence. In fact, the only way out of Iraq may be to saturate the country with US troops - particularly given that our "coalition of the willing" is becoming less a coalition and less willing.

One thing is for sure, the hand of the devil is involved in these kinds of decisions:

Q Tony, could you tell us specifically what the Vice President's role, as well as Karl Rove's role, are involved in this listening tour, as well as gathering information --

MR. SNOW: Well, number one, it's not a listening tour. And number two, we don't discuss internal deliberations.

Q -- tell us if the Vice President is involved?

MR. SNOW: As I've said, you've seen -- the Vice President has been in meetings and we have announced people who have been in the meetings. And I'm not going to get -- I'm just not going to get into --