The Finger-Pointing Game

On "Meet the Press," Tim Russert played Laura Bush's remarks and got this reaction from NYT conservative columnist David Brooks:

"Get off of it. I mean, we've got a hero in our newspaper, John Burns. Another hero, Dexter Filkins, there's a whole series of heroes over there. They're not biased about this. They want the best for the Iraqi people, they want democracy. Listen to what they're reporting, they're reporting chaos. You have 100--I don't know what it is, 1.6 million people leaving Iraq. You've got 9,000 Iraqis every week who are moving to their Shia homeland, or to their Sunni homeland. This is a country--it's not civil war, it's just disintegration.

"So the idea that this is some media concoction, you--I said that a year ago, two years ago. But at some point, face reality."

Verrry interesting that Bush chose to grant a longstanding Washington Post request for an interview yesterday, and wanted to get out this message:

"President Bush said today that he plans to expand the size of the U.S. military to meet the challenges of a long-term global war against terrorists, a response to warnings that sustained deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan have stretched the armed forces to near the breaking point."

The president clearly wanted to respond to the stories that the Joint Chiefs were opposing his "surge" plan for Iraq with American forces stretched so thin.

It was also a reflection of the digital age that The Post gave away the biggest part of its scoop online--even made the audio available, which the network newscasts snatched up--rather than hoarding it for the next day's paper.

The paper did save another telling comment by Bush:

"President Bush acknowledged for the first time yesterday that the United States is not winning the war in Iraq and said he plans to expand the overall size of the 'stressed' U.S. armed forces to meet the challenges of a long-term global struggle against terrorists."

Not winning? Maybe he's been consuming too much media. Laura ought to talk to him.

Boy, they're really starting to bail:

"Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, has submitted plans to retire and will leave his post in March -- a step likely to make way for a change in military strategy at a time the Bush administration is seeking a new plan for Iraq," says the L.A. Times."Abizaid has been the primary architect of U.S. military strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan since becoming head of the U.S. Central Command more than three years ago. He has strenuously resisted calls to increase troop levels to quell rising violence in Baghdad, arguing it would increase Iraqi dependence on Americans."