Josh Marshall says it all:
What a pitiful coward this man is. Maybe if I just sort of shuffle the papers a bit and clear my throat everybody will get off my case. That's his response.It's not like the ISG recommendations were all that radical, either. But at this stage even just going halfway towards embracing reality would be seen as an embarrassing failure by a White House which set out to "invent new realities".
Atrios sees it a little differently:
The ISG had one chance (not a big chance, I admit, but a chance) to force a policy change. That was to clearly, and in no uncertain terms, advocate the policy that a strong majority of Americans want - a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. They failed to do that, and now they're going to wonder why The Decider is filing their recommendations in the circular filing cabinet...Personally, I think their madate was to sprinkle some fairydust without endangering the real (still undeclared) mission in Iraq: control of oil and permanent US Military bases.
Meanwhile, Bush has hit a very miserable 30% approval in the latest Zogby poll and a quite astonishing 27% in the latest AP-Ipsos poll (with a whopping 71% against). I think he just broke both Bush Snr and Nixon's records.
No wonder the GOP, which blew $40 million dollars on House races and lost every one of them, as well as the Senate, is turning on him. How's this for starters:
"I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal," declared Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR), a 10-year veteran of the Senate, in a speech last night.I can't help thinking that the next few months could be very interesting indeed. The USA will be hitting 3000 deaths (murders?) in Iraq by new Year. Top dogs in the GOP are anxiously wondering how they can turn things around for 2008 if Bush and Cheney, the Executive Duo, just carry on regardless.
Watch for some brown stuff wildly flinging off the fan blades very soon.
