Moving the goalposts

Occasionally there are moments in our national political life that help to clarify for everyone the stakes involved in choosing our leaders. When the Supreme Court foisted G.W. Bush upon a hapless nation in 2000, they gave to us a President with an almost infinite capacity for self-delusion. The Enron debacle, with an equally "reality-challenged" chief executive, was devastating to thousands of people. Having "Dubya" in charge of the world's only remaining superpower has caused calamities that affect millions.

Sen. John Warner (R. VA) has caused something of a stir with his call for an immediate start to the redeployment of troops from Iraq. This isn't because of the boldness of his proposal (a more modest call for change could scacely be imagined) but results from his standing as an establishment pillar deeply embedded in the military-industrial complex of Washington D.C. Yet even more significant, in my mind, than high-level GOP defections, was the instant negative reaction to Bush's latest arguments for staying the course. Bush cherry-picked a conservative VFW audience for this appeal. The reaction showed clearly that not only does an overwhelming majority of the American public reject Bush's warmongering, but even his Republican base has lost patience with our Commuter and Thief. They may soon begin to join their fellow citizens of the Democratic persuasion in calling upon the national GOP to disown the disastrous Bush Iraq "policy."

Take a look at this account of the VFW speech:

Bush's remarks, the first in a series of appearances and other administration initiatives designed to rally support for maintaining as many as 170,000 U.S. troops in Iraq well into 2008 in advance of a critical report to Congress due in mid-September, suggested to supporters and critics alike that the president remains as determined as ever to hold out against pressure, even from his own party, to begin withdrawing troops in the coming months. "The president is not going to change; he's going to insist on staying the course," said ret. Gen. John Johns, a counter-insurgency specialist. "What is required is that the Republican leadership in Congress force the president (to change course). I do not see that in the works today, and I don't understand why." Bush's speech, which followed the overnight crash of a U.S. Blackhawk helicopter in which 14 U.S. soldiers were killed -- the worst one-day U.S. death toll in more than a year -- came amid growing speculation about both the fate of al-Maliki's government and the report by Washington's ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, and its military commander there, Gen. David Petraeus, which Congress may receive as early as Sep. 11. The report, which is supposed to be an assessment of the six-month-old surge strategy, is likely to echo what has become a growing consensus here over the past several weeks -- that, while the addition of some 30,000 U.S. troops and the adoption of more-aggressive counter-insurgency tactics have succeeded in reducing sectarian violence in Baghdad, virtually no comparable progress has been made on the political front.

It's sure to be an interesting September!