Bush Tries Moving the Goalposts

Defection Watch

The Republican defections, however, are no small matter.

As Noam N. Levey wrote in Saturday's Los Angeles Times: "Wearied by the lack of progress in Iraq and by the steady stream of military funerals back home, a growing number of Republican lawmakers who had stood loyally with President Bush are insisting his strategy has failed and are calling on him to bring the war to an end.

"In the last two weeks, three GOP senators -- including one of the party's leading voices on foreign affairs and one of Bush's strongest allies -- have urged the president to change course now so U.S. troops can start to withdraw.

"And Friday, in interviews with the Los Angeles Times, two more Senate Republicans bluntly voiced disappointment with the president's approach and pressed for change."

Robert D. Novak writes in his syndicated column: "National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley visited Capitol Hill just before Congress adjourned for the Fourth of July. Meetings with a half-dozen senior Republican senators were clearly intended to extinguish fires set by Sen. Richard Lugar's unexpected break from President Bush's Iraq policy. They failed. . . .

"Some senators were left with the impression that the White House still does not recognize the scope of the Iraq dilemma. Worse yet, they see the president running out the clock until April, when a depleted U.S. military can be blamed for the fiasco."

Opinion Watch

The New York Times editorial board pronounces: "It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit. . . .

"While Mr. Bush scorns deadlines, he kept promising breakthroughs -- after elections, after a constitution, after sending in thousands more troops. But those milestones came and went without any progress toward a stable, democratic Iraq or a path for withdrawal. It is frighteningly clear that Mr. Bush's plan is to stay the course as long as he is president and dump the mess on his successor. Whatever his cause was, it is lost. . . .

"President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have used demagoguery and fear to quell Americans' demands for an end to this war. They say withdrawing will create bloodshed and chaos and encourage terrorists. Actually, all of that has already happened -- the result of this unnecessary invasion and the incompetent management of this war.

"This country faces a choice. We can go on allowing Mr. Bush to drag out this war without end or purpose. Or we can insist that American troops are withdrawn as quickly and safely as we can manage -- with as much effort as possible to stop the chaos from spreading."

The Los Angeles Times editorial board, which called for withdrawal in May, writes: "Compromise has never been President Bush's strong point, but with Congress returning this week and the ranks of his congressional allies on the Iraq war diminishing fast, now would be a good time to start talking to lawmakers about the parameters of a pullout."

But retired Lt. General William Odom writes for NiemanWatchdog.org (where I serve as deputy editor) that Bush is not in any mood to compromise: "The president is strongly motivated to string out the war until he leaves office, in order to avoid taking responsibility for the defeat he has caused and persisted in making greater each year for more than three years.