The Hardest Sell

"As they began previewing the speech, administration aides indicated that the president plans to address the skepticism head-on. They indicated that he will talk about the lessons the United States has learned from the past several years of failing to quell the insurgency, as well as explain why he has confidence that the Maliki government can deliver on promises that it has not met so far."

But so far, Bush hasn't made that case convincingly -- even to Republican senators.

"Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) said the president was asked during her meeting what would be different about his new plan, and he replied that Maliki has had a 'sea change' in attitude. But she said she came away unconvinced."

Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes in the New York Times: "The White House is planning an aggressive effort to sell Congress and the American public on President Bush's new strategy for Iraq, beginning with a prime-time address to the nation on Wednesday night, followed Thursday by a presidential trip to Fort Benning, Ga., and appearances on Capitol Hill by the secretaries of state and defense.

"With Democrats vowing to oppose any plan to send more troops to Iraq, and some Republicans openly skeptical, Mr. Bush and his aides are already in the thick of an intense sales pitch. . . .

"White House officials were still planning details of the speech on Monday. The president's aides were contemplating having Mr. Bush deliver it from the White House Map Room, a site replete with the history and imagery of World War II -- imagery that Mr. Bush has invoked as he has sought to compare the campaign against terrorism to the struggle against totalitarianism and the Nazis. But the Oval Office, a more traditional setting, was also being considered."

David Jackson writes in USA Today that presidential counselor Dan Bartlett said the address will explain a new strategy and try to convince the country that failure in Iraq would undermine national security.

"Bartlett played down expectations for Bush's speech. 'Facts on the ground and events determine public opinion more than anything,' he says."

The Democrats

Jeff Zeleny writes in the New York Times: "The new Democratic majority in Congress is divided over how to assert its power in opposing President Bush's plan to send more troops to Baghdad, as leaders explore ways to block financing for a military expansion without being accused of abandoning American forces already in Iraq.

"While Democrats find themselves unusually united in their resistance to a troop increase, party leaders are locked in an internal debate over how far to go in objecting to the administration's Iraq strategy. . . .

"In the most aggressive of the new tactics, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, has said he will introduce legislation on Tuesday to require the president to gain new Congressional authority before sending more troops to Iraq. The bill is the first proposal in the Senate that would prohibit paying for an increase in American troops over their level on Jan. 1."

Alan Wirzbicki writes in the Boston Globe: "If Congress blocks funding for a surge in troops for Baghdad, as some Democrats are considering, President Bush would have little choice but to follow the law, legal specialists said yesterday.