WASHINGTON — Iraq Study Group member Leon E. Panetta believed that his panel's unanimous bipartisan recommendations about a new way forward in Iraq would give President Bush the political cover needed for a dramatic policy shift. So the former chief of staff to President Clinton has watched with alarm as Bush this week signaled that he may reject suggestions about diplomacy and withdrawing most US troops from Iraq by 2008.
Bush has even criticized the idea that the group was providing a "graceful exit" from the war — which is what Panetta and other panel members figured Bush most wanted.
How is that little old me, one of the blogosphere's most disreputable rabid lambs, understands what's going a hell of a lot better than The Wise Old Men of Washington? Really, I'm just aghast at this. Bush has made it quite clear for months and years that leaving is losing. My brilliant insight isn't based on my ability to look deep into his soul, it is based on my ability to hear what he has said over and over again. It's possible the ISG could've provided cover for Bush to shift from "stay the course!" to something slightly different, but only if that slightly different thing didn't involve, you know, leaving. Bush has made that perfectly clear repeatedly. Leaving is losing. Staying is winning. It's that simple.
...adding, the main issue is that there was no way the ISG was going to achieve desired change simply by "providing cover." To the extent that they could they had to try to force his hand. If they'd had the 6 weeks+ of media hype with Broderella and the gang falling all over themselves to praise their brilliance, and then they'd laid the nuclear "get the fuck out NOW you goddamn moron!" smackdown (in slightly more diplomatic language) on Bush, then maybe, just maybe, they'd have caused a big enough earthquake to force a sensible change.