Bush's Bubble Strikes Again

And even responding to a question straight out of the White House talking points, 56 percent of the public thinks "the United States should withdraw its military forces from Iraq in order to avoid further U.S. military casualties, even if that means civil order is not restored there"; compared to 42 percent who think that it should keep them there.

In other poll news, Jeffrey M. Jones writes for the Gallup News Service that in Bush's 25th quarter in office (Jan. 20 to April 19), the president "averaged only a 35% job approval rating, the lowest quarterly average of his presidency to date. His previous low was the 36% he averaged in the quarter spanning April - July 2006."

Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes in the New York Times: "In his confrontation with Congress over war spending, President Bush is calculating that he can weaken the resolve of Democrats with frequent and specific warnings that delays in passing the bill will hurt American troops and their families.

"As Mr. Bush makes his case for a war spending bill with no strings attached, White House aides say that talking about the troops is more compelling than delivering up Mr. Bush's other frequent message, that withdrawal from Iraq would be disastrous for the United States. That is why the president appeared in the East Room of the White House on Monday surrounded by families of soldiers -- including some who have died -- to hammer home his message that further delays may mean unpleasant Pentagon cutbacks. . . .

"With a showdown looming, Mr. Bush has been using the only real ammunition he has: his presidential platform. In a speech to an American Legion Post last Tuesday, he warned that without the new funds, the Army might be forced to delay the formation of new combat brigade teams, a move that he said could require the Pentagon to extend some soldiers' tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"But the next day, the Pentagon announced that it already had plans to extend troops tours in a move unrelated to the war financing issue."

Here is the transcript of Bush's speech yesterday.

"The families gathered here understand that we are a nation at war," he said. "They know that the enemies who attacked us on September the 11th, 2001 want to bring further destruction to our country. They know that the only way to stop them is to stay on the offense, to fight the extremists and radicals where they live, so we don't have to face them where we live. . . .

"Families gathered here understand that America is not going to be safe until the terrorist threat has been defeated. If we do not defeat the terrorists and extremists in Iraq, they won't leave us alone -- they will follow us to the United States of America. That's what makes this battle in the war on terror so incredibly important. One of the lessons of September the 11th is what happens overseas matters to the security of the United States of America, and we must not forget that lesson.

"The consequences of failure in Iraq would be death and destruction in the Middle East and here in America. To protect our citizens at home, we must defeat the terrorists. We defeat them by staying on the offense and we defeat them by helping young democracies defeat their ideology of hate. And it's hard work. But it is necessary work, and thousands of men and women who wear our uniform understand the stakes."

The liberal Think Progress blog put together a video montage of what it called Bush's "fear mongering." And blogger Steve Benen writes: "Bush didn't quite say, 'Give me a blank check or we'll all be killed,' but he certainly seemed to be going down that road. It wasn't pretty."

(And I tip my hat to Washington Monthly blogger Kevin Drum, who had a post yesterday about the parallels to what he calls "the Social Security fiasco." Wrote Drum: "[E]very time Bush opened his mouth on the subject, polls moved in the opposite direction. Now the same thing is happening with Iraq. If he had any brains, he'd just shut up and try to ride it out. His mouth is his own worst enemy.")