Signs of Change

Other news organizations cobbled together some news for their (maybe-no-longer) obligatory stories.

Elisabeth Bumiller writes in the New York Times: "President Bush took his campaign to convince Americans that the United States is winning the war in Iraq to a former country music concert hall here on Wednesday and declared to applause, 'If I didn't think we'd succeed, I'd pull our troops out.' "

James Gerstenzang writes in the Los Angeles Times: "President Bush publicly pressured the quarreling Iraqi political factions Wednesday to put aside their differences and establish a government.

" 'It's time for a government to get stood up,' he said in the latest of a series of appearances bolstering his Iraq policy. 'There's time for the elected representatives -- or those who represent the voters, the political parties -- to come together and form a unity government. That's what the people want. Otherwise, they wouldn't have gone to the polls, would they have?' "

Jennifer Loven writes for the Associated Press: "Whether he's before a friendly West Virginia audience, a Cleveland club proud of its interrogation skills or a White House news conference, President Bush is drawing on his plainspoken manner in freewheeling venues to defend his Iraq strategy. . . .

"In Wheeling on Wednesday, the fifth day in a row Bush devoted his remarks to Iraq, the president bantered with the locals, his shoulders bouncing up and down as they do when he's pleased with his own jokes. Then he brought down the house with his trademark I-won't-back-down pledge."

Kenneth R. Bazinet writes in the New York Daily News: "For a fourth straight day, President Bush tried yesterday to sell the Iraq war as winnable, but critics wonder if he's focusing too much on public relations and not enough on foreign policy."

The Daily Straw Man

From Bush's speech, talking about terrorists: "Now, I understand some say, well, maybe they're just isolated kind of people that are angry and took out their anger with an attack. That's not how I view them."

Question for the White House: Can you name one political leader who has said any such thing? I didn't think so.

Speaking of straw men, Joe Strupp writes in Editor and Publisher that Jennifer Loven 's Associated Press story about Bush's extensive and generally unchallenged use of straw-man arguments has caused a bit of a stir among conservative media critics.

"But an AP spokesman says editors want more of these types of wire stories."

As well they should. I've been writing about Bush's predilection for straw-man arguments almost ever since I launched this column. One of the first pieces I linked to on the topic was this excellent Dana Milbank column from June 2004.